BOSTON — Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. has purchased the ground lease for 100 Cambridge St. in Boston for $280 million from the MassDevelopment/Saltonstall Building Redevelopment Corp. As a result of the sale, all of the debt associated with the project will be paid off, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will receive nearly $90 million while retaining ownership of the underlying real estate. The sale covers the remaining 67 years of the lease through April 2082.
The Commonwealth will continue to lease floors two through 12 of the 600,000-square-foot property until 2052.
Colliers International arranged the sale of the 22-story building. The redeveloped property contains office space, along with 34,539 square feet of retail space and 75 residential condos. All of the residential units were sold following redevelopment and are not part of the current ground-lease assignment.
Douglas Jacoby and Scott Dragos of Colliers International’s investment sales team in Boston, with support from their retail and downtown office leasing groups, brokered the leasehold interest sale. Other Colliers team members involved in the transaction included Tony Hayes, Mike McLaughlin, Tim Mulhall and Lyndsey Ferreira.
“The transaction affirms the fresh interest we’re seeing in Boston’s government center area and validates this location with its view of Beacon Hill, the Charles River and the Cambridge Street medical area,” says Jacoby. “A key selling aspect of this transaction was the quality of the property that MassDevelopment created in its redevelopment of this well-known property.”
The Commonwealth closed the Leverett A. Saltonstall State Office Building, built in 1965, in 1999 due to asbestos contamination. Subsequently, the Commonwealth selected MassDevelopment through a competitive request for proposal process to redevelop the property. MassDevelopment added a retail and residential addition that extended the building out to Cambridge Street and provided a façade.
MassDevelopment reopened 100 Cambridge St. in 2004 and the building has been 100 percent leased since 2007. 100 Cambridge St. received the BOMA Boston Building of the Year Award in 2005; designation as an Urban Land Institute Award for Excellence Finalist – Mixed Use in 2006; and a LEED O&M Silver Certification through the U.S. Green Building Council in 2011.
100 Cambridge St. will remain a Class A office building, and the building’s existing leases will continue. The redeveloped open space at the rear of 100 Cambridge St., including the Garden of Peace, a memorial to victims of homicide, will also remain in place after the transaction.
— Haisten Willis