Lee Partners of New England

The two-building complex located at 52-54 Middlesex Turnpike was purchased by Kevin Curran of Curran 54 LLC from Jeff Goldberg and David Smerling, owners of Bedford Executive Office Suites, LLC during March of 2017.

The 47,000 sq ft and 8,000 sq ft building complex, sited on 6.5 acres, is located in the newly extended section of the Middlesex Turnpike in Bedford that reaches from Burlington to Crosby Drive in Bedford – where many of the leading technology companies in the area are located.

The 8,000 sq ft building is occupied by The Goddard School on a long term basis.

A total renovation of the 47,000 sq ft. Class C office building will start on September 6, 2017 when the building will be transformed into a Class A, mixed-use, office and retail campus.

The General Contractor for the renovation project is Dacon Construction headed by President Dennis Quinn. Chuck Riley VP for marketing at Dacon and Jeff Price
Lead estimator were critical in developing the renovation plans and pricing. Dennis McCarthy, lead architect for PDA architects, an in-house division of Dacon, is the lead architect for the project.
Bruce Lee was part of the team that originally sold 54 Middlesex Turnpike to Jeff and David almost 20 years ago. In addition, Bruce represented The Goddard School and the owners of 54 Middlesex Turnpike in securing a long term build-to- suit lease with The Goddard School. Bruce represented both the buyer Kevin Curran and the seller Bedford Executive Office Suites, LLC in the most recent-purchase/sale transaction.

Lee Partners represented Tom Fulchino of G.F. Properties, LLC in the successful sale of his 13,000 sq ft class B office building located at 155 Middlesex Turnpike, Burlington, MA in January 2017.

The sale was completed to the technology company Ovitas, Inc. The company had been leasing space at 60 Mall Road in Burlington, MA when they decided to make an offer to purchase 155 Middlesex Turnpike. Fortunately for Ovitas they were successful in purchasing the building.

Bruce Lee of Lee Partners was the exclusive sales agent for the property and within 45 days was able to obtain 12 written offers to purchase the building for the owner. The marketing program was so successful that a sales sign did not need to be posted on the property advertising its availability.

Officially G.F. Properties, LLC was the seller and Ovitas, Inc the buyer. Joel Aho of O’Brian Commercial Properties, Inc represented Ovitas, Inc. Tibor Tscheke, Managing Director of Ovitas, Inc. was the key contact at Ovitas throughout the sale/purchase process.

Bruce Lee tapped into his extensive connections in the industry and marketed directly to many potential buyers during the marketing program and kept the lines of communication wide open with all throughout the sale process.

This summer was an active time for Lee Partners – we represented many corporations and entrepreneurs and helped them locate, negotiate for, and occupy new space. A few of our highlights are below:

We helped Anthony Oliveri to lease space at 101 Clematis Avenue in Waltham for start up engineering company that had been his family dream for many years – it could become a modern-day “Hewlett Packard” engineering success story right here in Massachusetts!

Following this effort we helped another company – BeiGene – locate and negotiate office space at a Class A office building known as Reservoir Place at 1605 Trapelo Road in Waltham.

BieGene commenced operations in September in their new space. This company, with most of its employees located in China, is well known in the biotech field. Significantly, they just secured $97M in venture funding. The new Waltham executive office expands their presence in the United States.

Additionally, we helped another start-up company lease office space in Bedford –Exascale Networks – where the founders will open operations at 209 Burlington Road.

Continuing a long term support effort – Lee partners represented Polatis – a technology company with offices in the UK and Europe in the extension of their office space lease at 213 Burlington Road in Bedford. What a great location!

Bruce helped Boston Install to locate, negotiate, and secure expansion lease space at 18 Terry Avenue in Burlington.  This will supplement and expand their Lawrence operations. Watch out for that truck!

Bruce also spent a lot of time this summer representing McGlynn, Clinton, & Hall Insurance in the purchase of their new office building space at 325 Boston Post Road in Sudbury – expanding their business and lowering their overall cost of occupancy. Larry McGlynn’s insurance business was ending a 10 year lease and Bruce helped to locate, negotiate, and secure the new space.

Lee Partners also had the opportunity to work with a highly innovative company called IDEX – US. IDEX, with headquarters in Europe, is expanding to the US and secured office/engineering space at Highwood Office Park in Tewksbury. Bruce represented IDEX in the initial lease of space at Highwood Office Park and recently helped them to expand into a total of 10,000 sq ft. of space. They are developing exciting next generation mobile personal identification technology. A company to watch!

As you can see – it has been a busy summer for Bruce and Lee Partners – representing companies that are starting up, growing, and expanding in the suburban Boston commercial markets!

Are you looking to move? How can I help you?

Waltham Center has been going through a transformation due to the creation of MERC at Moody and Main St. The old Athena Health office building below will be torn down to create luxury housing, right across from the Waltham Common.

The MERC is a new development by Northland. This is an amazing project of 269 apartments aiming at Millennials so they can live in an urban style, but outside of Boston in a smaller community, close to the highways and suburban office market.

From their project website you would read: “The Merc at Moody & Main is Northland’s newest, transit-oriented apartment community. Located in the heart of downtown Waltham, it’s a short walk to shops, restaurants, museums, the Town Common, and an extensive array of transit options to downtown Boston, Route 128 and beyond.

“The architecture and design evoke and respect the historic character of downtown Waltham while providing exciting, modern, energy-efficient, sustainable living. The ground floor shops and restaurants further enhance the neighborhood and living experience of residents.”

The new development follows on the successful redevelopment of the old Grover Cronin department store in the 1990’s which re-vitalized Moody St and began to help Waltham take advantage of the amazing Charles River as an amenity for residents.

You can launch a canoe or kayak from the landing right next to Moody St.

Looking from the north side of the Charles south to Cronin’s Landing. Moody St. bridge on left.

The dam at Moody St. as seen from the bridge. The old mill building and Museum of Industry is to the left – you can just see the chimney. Boston is straight down the river – passing Watertown and Cambridge on the north and Newton and Allston on the south.

Waltham has a historic common where the City Hall and other important buildings used to reign. Now the MERC w/ hundreds of new residents will have this feature as their front yard.

There is a lot of history in Waltham – from the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the industrial revolution all the way up to today’s developments as part of the Greater Boston region.

Downtown Waltham is on the MBTA Commuter Rail – the Fitchburg line. The station stop is on the south side of the Common, right at Moody St! It is 12 minutes to Porter Square in Cambridge to catch the Red Line to Kendall Sq (another 9 mins) and 20 mins to North Station in Boston. Trains are fairly regular every hour, more in the morning rush hour.

It is exciting to see this new development going up in Waltham and it will help the City continue to attract bright young people who want to work in the high-tech industry. These folks will become customers of the many small businesses in the area and help improve the innovation economy!

But brace yourself, the MERC ain’t cheap:

• Studio starts at $2,100 per month;
• 1 Bedroom starts at $2,145
• 2 Bedroom starts at $2,845
• 3 Bedroom starts at $3,645

These are RENTS! If you were looking for a condo or a nice house near Waltham Center, you should be looking to buy right now!

Photo of Polaroid Site from Bear Hill Road

A drive thru the City of Waltham today revealed a vibrancy and economic resurgence that is exciting to watch take place! Construction activity abounds with new office buildings and apartment buildings being completed in a wave of 2014-2015 new construction. Most obvious is the redevelopment of the Polaroid Site just off of Rt. 117. This site has almost one mile of direct frontage onto Rt. 128. It is becoming a new home to a massive mixed use retail/office development that is transforming the landscape along Rt. 128 – America’s Technology Highway. The site has over 100 acres and it is approved for 1.2 million sq. ft. of new office/retail/residential development.

Photo of Clarks America HQ

Boston Properties has under construction a 120,000 sq. ft. 4-story building at 1265 Main Street and it is already pre-leased by Clarks America. Clarks is relocating from Newton Upper Falls and will have 400 employees working in this building by early 2016. The building will have a roof deck, private outdoor terrace of 5,000 sq. ft., an employee store and a new fitness center. Over 400,000 cars will drive by the front of this building every day.

10 City Point Under Construction

Less than a mile from the Polaroid site, Boston Properties is completing a new mixed use 230,000 sq ft. project at 10 City Point (Totten Pond Road & Winter Street). Wolverine Worldwide (parent of Stride Rite and others) has signed up for 150,000 sq ft. to kick off the 230,000 sq ft. project that will include retail plus the office component. The retail tenants will start off with a new Posto restaurant (from Davis Square) and Bone Fresh Grill.

The New 275 Wyman Street

At Hobbs Brook Park on Wyman Street the finishing touches are being put on the 275 Wyman Street redevelopment project. This redevelopment is the result of taking a 80,000 sq ft. older office building site to a brand new LEED Certified 315,000 office building plus a 1,025 space parking garage. VistaPrint will be moving into 150,000 sq ft. of office space by the end of this year. Nice Work, Hobbs Brook!

Stay tuned for more news from the exciting City of Waltham!

By Bruce Lee

Over the last 10 days I attended Four (4) Brokerage open houses in the Boston Suburban Boston Office Market. This was an unusual occurance to have multiple open houses during the middle of June. Outreaches to the brokerage community typically occur when a building changes ownership or when a significant upgrade is completed.

The four open houses took place at 805 Middlesex Turnpike, Billerica; Concord Green office park in Concord; 35 Nagog Park in Acton, and 110 Canal Street in Lowell. At these open houses active commercial brokers from competitive brokerage firms are invited to tour the available office space, listen to a marketing plan for each building, be updated on new and future building amenities, and meet the current owner/landlords for each property. In addition the offering lease rates and tenant incentives are reviewed.

The overall objective for these events is to re aquaint the brokerage community to the space offered and thereby increase prospective tenant tours to the buildings – specifically to have brokers include these buildings in their surveys for clients and onto their client tenant tour schedules. In this market it is very rare for a tenant to lease space in a new building without first taking a tour of the space.

Tenants who are in the market to consider new office space are only actively considering space options every few years – so they rely of trusted advisors –commercial brokers – to listen to their needs and then propose alternatives for review. In a sense these brokers hold the “keys” to what buildings are to be considered by their clients.

The Tenant client benefits from a broker who is more familiar with current market conditions and the ability of Landlords to meet commitment deadlines. These open houses are an avenue for property owners to reveal their product, their track record of performance, their pricing, and their competency to increase broker trust in their capabilities.

Open house Reviews:

805 Middlesex Turnpike, Billerica, MA

35 Nagog Park, Acton, MA

Middlesex Green, Concord, MA

110 Canal Street, Lowell, MA

This is a unique offering in Lowell where some very interesting office changes are taking place. The open house was held on the first floor of 110 Canal Street Another “rolling” open house with lunch being served to brokers along with a building tour of the available space.

The lunch was exceptional for events like these open houses – high quality salads were offered, beverages, sandwiches, and high quality deserts. Tables, chairs, dining in an open environment with greeters, name tags, space boards, brochures, during an open and airy sunny day.

First rate open house offered by CBRE and its first Vice President Kerry Olson Hawkins. And, the space on the top two floors of this building – already leased to the UMASS Lowell Inovation M2D2 Center was absolutely amazing to tour.

Tom O’Donnell, Director, Innovation Hub led me on a tour of space that I could hardly believe existed in Lowell. The top floor is built out and ready for occupancy for small start-up companies in the “sharred space” model. Entering the floor you are greeted with a reception desk – then walking thru the space you see a wide open ceiling with exposed HVAC ducting and cable trays for IT infrastructure, a wide open kitchenette, and multiple desks with power and internet connectivity with few columns, no fixed walls here, and high ceiling glass on the exterior letting in lots of natural light. Walking towards the rear you see along the exterior wall glass offices.

In the center of the space is “ready to operate” lab space tables and shelving. A life sciences start-up company could be up and running in hours here instead of weeks or months – all the lab space is already built out – including hoods and sinks in separate rooms. Wrapping around this 11,000 sq. ft. suite is an area for small companies to have 2 or 3 permanent desks – not shared with others – but still desks with a small drawer for private papers etc. In the hallways are low seating stools for joint collaborative conversations. There are also shared conference rooms and a large boardroom that can be reserved for presentations. Large and small telephone booths are available for private phone calls – built into the walls.

The next floor below – another 11,000 sq. ft. has more of the same with the addition of large rooms where a start-up company could actually build its product. The two floors have security card access only and are available to tenants 24×7, 365 days a year. Best of all – the portable desk open space with internet connectivity, access to the kitchenette, conference rooms, boardroom, lab areas, phone booths, etc leases for only $250 per month. The more permanent desk areas lease for $350 per month, and the exterior glass walled offices lease for only $1,400 per month can easily house 4 employees. Thanks to Tom for showing me this space!

Trinity Financial owns this building and when I spoke with Dan Drazen, the project manager, he told me that Trinity had recently finished a multifamily project Appleton Mills (130 loft units) next door to this building when they decided to buy and renovate 110 Canal Street. Trinity specializes in multi family re-development but also do other projects. Could this have been a two floor pre-lease? The university of Lowell and Mass Economic Development folks have improved this space at great cost to encourage start-up businesses and small businesses in the life sciences and technology sector. I believe this project will be a “home run” and a great project to revisit in a few months when start up operations commence.

This open house featured a “rolling lunch” covering a couple of hours when brokers could drop by, have lunch, and listen to the landlord broker team explain the new owner’s plan to upgrade and transform this 80’s office park to a “green user friendly” park. The theme here is “green.” It is the first suburban office park in this area to be transformed into a green offering – with energy efficient upgrades and added amenities. The “open house” featured two contests for the broker visitors to compete for a chance to win a portable “Apple Drone”. The contests included tossing a unusual odd-ball bean bag at a board with a hole in the top. If you were able to toss the bean bag successfully into the designated hole you would win another chance to win the “drone” drawing. In addition, there was a Frisbee toss – into a chain linked basket. If you were able to toss the frisbee into the basket you would again win another chance to win the drone drawing. I missed on the bean bag toss – but did succeed with the frisbie toss. Unfortunately this win did not result in my winning the drone drawing. It was fun and a little unusual – all the tossing was done inside the building while the brokers enjoyed lunch and heard the marketing pitch from the leasing team and the president of Paradigm Properties, John Caldwell – the new owner of the park. Green features to include a new fitness center with Wlllbeats; Green restaurant, Community gardens, electric car chargers, LED lighting, Shared bicycles, organic lawn products, etc.

Space here is offered in the low to mid $20 gross plus tenant electric. One of the five buildings in the park is already under agreement to be sold to a “user” – and another prospective tenant is looking to lease three other buildings in the park – so the new marketing plan is already paying off for Paradigm.

This open house featured 16,000 square feet of built out office space on the second floor of the building. The brokerage firm of Cushman and Wakefield of Massachusetts has been the broker agent for this property for some time.

Four years ago National Development purchased the entire Nagog Park to include 9 buildings and commenced renovations and upgrades in all the buildings. Over these years the available space was fully leased – primarily from local business tenants. This success in leasing lead to the decision to sell the properties – many of the buildings to local business and finally the last three buildings including 35 Nagog Park to GFI Partners.

Mike Frisoli, the lead broker for this assignment explained the offering and indicated that GFI would be very flexible in meeting any tenant office space requirements – short term or long term or temporary term. GFI is interested in keeping their new buildings fully leased to tenants. As a matter of fact, the space that we were touring at the open house is currently leased to a tenant paying rent – who would rather work a deal with GFI to be released from their lease commitment. For this reason GFI is in the position to offer a new deal on the space at a very aggressive rate to a new tenant. A “good by” kiss (release payment) would allow GFI to increase incentives for a new tenant.

Will Deshire who is with GFI was present and added that you can walk from this building to the retail shoping restaurants and stores at the Nagog Mall – providing a rich amenity environment for tenants to enjoy. Quoted lease rates were $16.50 gross; net of tenant electricity – a very cost effective office lease rate for tenants in this market. Also, a unique marketing tool was introduced during the building/space presentation – a drone fly-over presentation of the building – showing the building, parking, neighboring buildings and surrounding area – including Nagog Pond – from above. I expect that we will see many more commercial building fly-over marketing presentations at future broker open houses.

This building was recently purchased by Brandon Kelly of the RJ Kelly Company in Burlington. At the open house their broker agent Cushman and Wakefield of Massachusetts explained the building improvements completed over the past year – to include new lobby renovations, new HVAC units, new roof, new landscaping, re-done parking lot, and other building system upgrades.

The event was well attended by about 50 active members of the suburban brokerage community. Pricing reviewed included an offering lease rate of $14.50 NNN that includes a $30 to $40 tenant build out allowance for a 5 year new lease. Brendan and his brother Scott indicated that they were looking to lease a minimum of 60,000 sq. ft. to kick off the occupancy of the 122,000 sq. ft. building. They feel that with office lease rates increasing rapidly in the Rt. 128/Burlington market they would be able to attract a “back office” use from one of these larger Burlington tenants at a much lower price point.

Brandon and Scott are experienced landlord owners/operators in this market and I feel their approach is perfect for this building. Buy, improve immediately, and provide a value lease rate offering to prospective tenants. The 805 building location could be classified as a “between-er” location – because it is located between two major exits off of Rt. 3 – Concord Road and Rt. 62 exits – so it is not located directly off a major Rt. 3 intersection. Many Class A office tenants would be put off by the location and relative lack of amenities close by – other than the “99” restaurant across the street. But, for back office space this would be a value play for cost-conscious tenants.