Once again, it appears Edward W. Callan may be getting out of InWood.
According to industry sources, the Texas developer has been shopping his interests in a planned master park that would be built along Interstate 93 on the Reading/Woburn line. To be known as InWood Office Park, the 57-acre project was resurrected recently by Callan, who acquired the rights to the tract for a second time in 1998 after selling them a decade earlier. He has spent the time since obtaining local and state approvals for the massive complex.
Callan told Banker & Tradesman recently that he hoped to begin construction of the initial building by June, even if there was no tenant in tow. But the developer has now supposedly changed his strategy, with one source claiming that both Boston Properties and Nordic Properties have expressed interest in taking over the site. The development would also be ideal as a corporate campus similar to those developed by Sun Microsystems and 3Com, the source added.
Despite such rumors, Callan dismissed the reports as being old and stale when contacted last Friday. He also claimed he has not been the one initiating any talks to sell the property.
I get approached all the time by suitors, Callan said. He added that he has been out of town for several weeks and is unsure what the status of the project is at this point. Callan did not, however, rule out a sale of the parcel and said he hopes to have a clearer picture of the development’s future within the next few weeks.
Right now, we’re just trying to sort things out, Callan said, adding that, We’ve got a long way to go.
Visionary
One setback may have been Callan’s apparent inability to convince Bell Atlantic to commit to one of the properties. The telecommunications giant has been looking for a new facility to replace its existing cellular operation at nearby Unicorn Park, and reportedly was close to striking a deal to take an entire 100,000-square-foot building at InWood before company officials opted to look elsewhere. Callan declined comment on the matter.
In any event, if a sale of InWood is consummated, it would be just the latest twist in Callan’s sporadic Hub development career. After making his fortune providing construction and real estate services to the oil business, the Houston native arrived on the Bay State scene in the early 1980s with a plan to convert a former amusement park in Wakefield into Class A office space. He bought the 132-acre site in 1984, developed three buildings totaling 314,000 square feet within 27 months, then sold his stake at what became Edgewater Office Park for more than $100 million in 1987. On both ends of that venture, Callan was seen as a visionary, building the project when no one else would and retrenching just before the region’s office market hit its worst skid ever.
Following the Edgewater sale, Callan left the region to return to the oil industry, reappearing locally only after he was able to exercise a right-of-first-refusal clause for InWood in the improving market. Again, industry observers marveled at his timing and choice of sites, with some citing it as having some of the best highway frontage in the suburbs.
It’s a home run location, said one North Shore broker. The trick is to get the financing.
Among other things, the construction of a new interchange off I-93 is expected to improve access to the InWood parcel, some of which is a former poultry farm and the rest mostly wooded. A schematic of the master-planned park shows five buildings located prominently along I-93, with structures ranging between 84,000 and 383,000 square feet. When fully built out, InWood could accommodate upwards of 850,000 square feet, while Callan said a hotel is another possibility for the complex.
