Bolstered by a warm reception for its 111 Huntington Ave. tower under construction at the Hub’s Prudential Center, Boston Properties is preparing to move ahead with yet another office building at the sprawling mixed-use complex, company officials acknowledged last week.
“We are actively looking at that,” Boston Properties principal David Barrett told Banker & Tradesman. “We are working on the initial design right now.”
The project is just one of several significant changes planned for the 23-acre development in the coming months. Barrett also said that his firm, which bought the complex two years ago for $520 million, is about to reskin the center’s 101 Huntington Ave. tower due to a leaking problem.
“The whole skyline at the Prudential Center is going to look very different,” Barrett said, noting that 111 Huntington Ave. will be fully enclosed by Thanksgiving. On the Boylston Street side, the new building will feature a courtyard in front, while a Star Market facing the street will reportedly be moved as part of the undertaking.
CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares architects, which is also doing the 36-story tower at 111 Huntington Ave., has been retained to design the new building, which would be 11 stories high and encompass 175,000 to 200,000 square feet. It would be located on Boylston Street, adjacent to the Hynes Convention Center and in front of the Prudential Center’s signature 52-story Prudential Tower.
The new building had originally been approved in a master plan hammered out by the center’s erstwhile owners, Prudential Insurance Co., and a group known as the Prudential Center Project Advisory Committee (PruPac). Originally formed in 1986 to oversee an expansion of the 26-acre complex, PruPac ultimately agreed to a series of new buildings featuring office, residential and retail space in select locations. The bulk of that expansion, including the tower which broke ground a year ago, was delayed when the recession crushed Boston’s real estate market in the early 1990s.
With a hefty 930,000 square feet to lease at 111 Huntington Ave., most felt that Boston Properties would complete that task prior to launching the smaller property. Such was the case, Barrett agreed, but the amount of leasing interest at 111 Huntington Ave. and the Hub’s super-tight office environment prompted his firm to speed up the process.
“This is a very strong market,” Barrett said. “Everybody’s got the wind at their backs right now.”
The Huntington Avenue project got a major boost when venerable law firm Palmer & Dodge announced it would relocate from the Financial District to more than 180,000 square feet at the Back Bay tower, followed by a 92,000-square-foot pact inked by Bain Capital for the top four floors. Although there are no signed leases beyond that point, Barrett said his company is encouraged by the activity, saying that, “the progress on leasing 111 Huntington Ave. has gone considerably faster than expected.” Insignia/ESG has been retained as exclusive leasing agent, and is said to be honing in on several sizeable deals.
While considered a separate action, the office building effort comes just as Boston Properties initiates discussions with PruPac on a plan to alter an approved residential building on the Boylston Street side. That deal came to light last week when Barrett told PruPac members that Four Seasons Hotel General Manager Robin Brown has proposed changing the building to a mix of hotel and residential units, in conjunction with developers Stephen Weiner and Julian Cohen.
In keeping with previous practice, Boston Properties would sell the development rights to the new group. Almost exclusively focused on office ownership, Boston Properties has already passed on a condominium project underway on the Huntington Avenue side to a third-party developer, with Barrett maintaining that part of the real estate investment trust’s appeal is its concentration on one sector. When it acquired the Prudential Center, for example, a trio of residential buildings was sold separately to AvalonBay Communities.
“It is just not the way we presented ourselves to the public market or the way the public market sees us,” Barrett said in explaining why his firm avoids controlling a mixed bag of product types.
Sources said Boston Properties would like work to begin on the new office building by the end of the year. While Barrett declined to provide a timetable, industry sources said the firm has already begun marketing the space. Citing a 1 percent vacancy rate in the Back Bay, Meredith & Grew broker Robert B. Cleary Jr. said he believes Boston Properties would not have to stray far to find an audience.
“There are a couple of candidates [in the Back Bay] who are likely candidates to kick that off,” Cleary said. They include Bain & Co., the consulting firm currently located at nearby Copley Place, as well as Arnold Communications and Digitas. Cleary added that time is of the essence, with several competing projects also about to move into construction, including One Lincoln St. and 131 Dartmouth St.
“I think they need to do it real quick or they are going to miss the cycle,” he said.
Meanwhile, Barrett said work on 101 Huntington Ave. will begin in July. The firm has wrestled with how to stop the leaking since buying the 25-story tower as part of the Prudential Center acquisition. Not only should the new facade solve that issue, Barrett maintained that the adding of a granite coat will make the brick-faced building more compatible with its surroundings as well. Both the nearby Colonnade Hotel and Christian Science Center are heavily laden with granite, for example.
“It will really change the feel of the building in a very nice way,” Barrett said.
