BOSTON — Boston Properties has purchased Boston's iconic John Hancock Tower for $930 million. The locally based REIT purchased the building from a joint venture between Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners.
Constructed in 1976, John Hancock Tower is a 60-story, approximately 2 million-square-foot office building located in the city's Back Bay neighborhood at 200 Clarendon Street. The Class A property was originally constructed for John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. and is the city's tallest building. Occupancy was 97 percent at the time of closing. The current tenant roster includes State Street Corp., Manulife Financial Corp., Bain Capital, Ernst & Young, CRA International and Berkshire Partners. The deal also included the tower's adjacent 2,013-space parking garage.
Boston Properties already has a significant presence in the city's Back Bay submarket. It controls Prudential Center, a 3.2 million-square-foot mixed-use project that comprises 2.6 million square feet of office space and 620,000 square feet of retail space. The REIT is currently developing a mixed use project in the city's Waterfront submarket. Atlantic Wharf will include a 31-story, 750,000-square-foot office tower along with 30,000 square feet of retail space, 70 to 80 residential units, a 650-car parking garage, a waterfront plaza and other public spaces. The LEED-Gold project will be ready for initial occupancy this quarter. As of September 30, Boston Properties controlled 48 properties in the greater Boston MSA totaling 9.37 million square feet.
The Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets team of Griffin Maher and Edward Maher, Jr., partnered with the Cushman & Wakefield downtown Boston team of William Anderson, Gilbert Dailey and David Martel to represent the seller and procure the buyer.
“This transaction completes in 18 short months the long-term objective that Normandy and Five Mile Capital had for The John Hancock Tower — to return an iconic building to its rightful place as the premiere office property in Boston,” said, Jeff Gronning,, managing principal of Normandy Real Estate Partners, in a statement.
— Coleman Wood