"The rumor is they've taken it off the market," says Brian McKenzie, a partner with Richards, Barry, Joyce and Partners, referring to 3Com. McKenzie tells GlobeSt.com that Berwind is close to a deal to lease 100,000 to 125,000 sf of the property.

Financial details of the deal were not available but 3Com was asking for over $200 per sf, a number that most industry experts say will not be achieved in this sale. In another recent big deal in this area, Hall Gillespie LLC purchased the three-building former Lucent complex for $27.5 million or $55 per sf.

3Com recently leased 30,000-sf of the space here to National Grid for three years. McKenzie says that 3Com will most probably lease back one of the buildings in the campus for three to four years. He points out that even with Berwind's anchor tenant on board, there will still be "significant vacancies" in this market.

"It's certainly better to see campuses trading hands rather than languishing. It provides some life to the market," says McKenzie. But, he adds, "given that there will still be vacancies on these campuses, it won't do much for the vacancy rates, which are still in neighborhood of 20%."

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