With development booming in Fenway — everywhere in Boston, really — Samuels & Associates is banking on new office space to attract eager tenants.
The Boston Business Journal reported that the group responsible for the Landmark Center Expansion project has started construction on a $320 million mixed-use project on Boylston Street, close to Fenway Park, home of the 2013 ALCS Champion Red Sox (had to do it).
The VanNess project is slated for completion in 2015, and has been designed to include two buildings: an 8-story building with 232,ooo square-feet of office space and an additional 11-story, 172-unit, residential apartment building.
A 170,000-square-foot City Target, a new concept store launched by Target Corp. last year, will devour the majority of the 210,000 square feet of retail space included in the development, featuring “about a dozen other retailers.”
The companies considering the space have not yet been revealed.
“One of the things that makes VanNess so interesting is the continued migration of companies into the city and the unique opportunities that those companies are looking for in terms of quality space, branding in that space, and the ability to attract young labor which is driving much of the technology boom that we’re seeing,” Andrew Hoar, president and co-managing partner of CBRE/New England, the broker handling the office leasing, told the BBJ.
Steep construction costs will drive rents up among the highest in Greater Boston, Hoar added, ranging from the mid $60s to $80 per square foot.
“It’s clear that with any new building, the cost structure is similar,” Peter Sougarides, a principal at Samuels & Associates, told the BBJ. “We are in the Fenway area for the long run and are very aggressive in making deals and attracting tenants.”
The office “submarket” in the Fenway neighborhood is small, with an availability rate of 14.4 percent. Rents at these “Class B” spaces typically range from $20 to $34 per square foot.
Starting construction before leasing is just as out of the ordinary.
The last developer to do so was Joseph Fallon in 2010, when One Marina Park Drive, a 500,000-square-foot glass tower at Fan Pier, was completed.
Image from Boston.com
