Clarion Partners Buys Pair of Back Bay Office Buildings for $87.1M

On behalf of a separate-account client, real estate investment manager Clarion Partners has acquired two adjoining office buildings in Boston’s Back Bay for $87.1 million. The 13-story buildings total 184,000 square feet.

February 2, 2012
By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

The properties on Boylston Street. Photo by Warren Patterson.

On behalf of a separate-account client, real estate investment manager Clarion Partners L.L.C. has acquired two adjoining office buildings in Boston’s Back Bay for $87.1 million, Clarion announced Tuesday. The 13-story buildings total 184,000 square feet.

535 and 545 Boylston Street have separate entrances facing onto Copley Square, but are connected on multiple floors. They were built in the mid-1960s and 1970s, Mark Weld, managing director at Clarion, told Commercial Property Executive, but in 2009 underwent an upgrade that included enhancements to the entries and the street-level retail façade.

Although the buildings are currently 92 percent leased, in an area with an average vacancy rate of about 6 percent, Weld said their occupancy is trending upward and he expects them to be at about 95 percent within the next several weeks. The buildings’ tenants include law and investment firms, consultancies and the administrative offices of a biotech company, he said. The typical tenant has 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, Weld said, and rents average about $50 a square foot.

Weld emphasized that the area on and around Boylston Street in the Back Bay has high barriers to entry and limited land available for new construction. The buildings are accessible by mass transit and two blocks from the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Clarion has more than $24 billion in total assets under management for more than 200 domestic and international institutional investors.

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