"It's really ready for someone to buy and fit up," explainsCBRE/New England principal Gary Lemire, who is handling theassignment with CBRE/New England principals Patrick Cavanagh andMark Reardon. Besides plenty of value-added capital aiming to takeadvantage of Greater Boston's economic rebound, Lemire cites thenorth suburban Boston office market as a particularly attractivearea at present after an impressive 2007. "The Route 3 market haspicked up quite a bit, and there is a lot of interest for quality,modern space," he says. Owner of a Tewksbury construction companyand developer of several suburban Boston commercial assets, Cormierdesigned 95 Billerica Ave. to offer a flexible layout and suchhigh-end features as a two-story atrium, relays Lemire. Thelandscaped, 13-acre site is just two miles from the Interstate 495interchange.

Although its vacancy rate of 18.8% is still above the overallsuburban average of 15.5% in the latest CBRE Greater Boston officeoverview, Route 3 North had the third highest amount of netpositive absorption among 10 submarkets tracked in the assessmentof 191.5 million sf. The 411,000 sf absorbed last year made up thebulk of the 675,000 sf of positive absorption in the Metro Northregion of 37.7 million sf. Despite all that velocity, Route 3remains the value leader for the northern tier at $15.43 per sf,compared to $19.96 per sf overall for the north and $22.18 per sffor all of suburban Boston, according to CBRE.

Bolstered by a widening of Route 3 that took place during thebrutal downturn earlier this decade, the submarket is gaining inpopularity among cost-conscious tenants, says Lemire, while a lackof new construction is expected to further enhance 95 BillericaAve.'s allure among investors able to tackle the completion effort.Acceding that the pace of investment sales has dipped dramaticallyover 2007, Lemire says he nonetheless anticipates that some ownerssuch as Cormier will test the financial waters in the comingmonths, especially in hot sectors such as Route 3.