"We are confident that Lee Munder's tenancy is a perfect fit for the building and the company's longer-term goals," DTZ FHO Partners principal Barry Hynes says in a release. Hynes, who negotiated the lease for Lee Munder with colleague Rick Fahey, says his client was focused on "quality and value" in its space search, and was ultimately able to combine the two goals and still remain in its long-time home at 200 Clarendon St.

Lee Munder Capital Group president Ken Swan declined to discuss terms of the lease, but praises DTZ FHO for structuring terms that allows the company to lock in its real estate costs "for the foreseeable future, putting a critical issue behind us." The 62-story, 1.5-million-sf tower is owned by Broadway Real Estate Partners, who was represented in the negotiations by David Martel of Cushman & Wakefield.

Having been built in the mid-1970s, the Hancock Tower is one of the city's oldest office buildings, but still manages to command top rents and maintain a tenant roster featuring some of the area's leading companies. The Back Bay itself has emerged in the past decade to become a recognized alternative to Boston's Financial District, even surpassing the core office market in asking rental rates this year, according to data from Jones Lang LaSalle. In the third quarter survey, JLL posted the average asking rate for the Back Bay at $60.36 per sf, compared to $57.79 per sf in the Financial District. The high-water mark reflects an astounding 51% rise in asking rates during the past year for the Back Bay.

Besides setting the pace on rents, the Back Bay has the lowest vacancy rate of six Boston office districts tracked by JLL, posting a 3.5% mark for 12.8 million sf. It is the city's second largest office submarket, trailing only the 33.6 million sf concentrated in the Financial District. The vacancy rate for class A space in the Back Bay is even tighter than the overall figure at just 1.6%, with no new construction presently under way.