Invesco Acquires Cambridge Trophy in $113M Trade

Invesco's portfolio manager William Grubbs tells GlobeSt.com that despite its high ticket, the property will be a long-term hold for the company's Core Real Estate USA Fund. "We believe it is a top building in Cambridge in a top, irreplaceable location. "It's a world class location with rents that have room to grow."

Edward C. Maher Jr. with Cushman & Wakefield's Capital Markets Group tells GlobeSt.com that the property, which was marketed for five or six weeks, drew bids from a mix of domestic and foreign investors. "They [Invesco] were a very strong bidder and we had a good comfort level with them." He declined to list the selling price, but a source familiar with the trade says Invesco paid about $113 million, or more than $400 per sf, for the nine-story building.

Maher says bidding on the brick office was especially strong because of the property's location on the banks of the Charles River. "Everyone who saw this property said 'this is the real deal. It's great stuff.'" The strong roster of tenants that include Genzyme Corp., Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Endeca Technologies and Finnegan Henderson, also helped fuel interest in the offering, he says.

The office drew one of the highest prices for a stand-alone building here. In 2004 Wells Real Estate Funds Inc. purchased 1414 Massachusetts Ave., a 78,720-sf office building, for a record price of $538 per sf, or about $42.1 million. The Atlanta-based REIT also paid $687 million that same year for One Brattle Square, a 98,069-sf retail and office property in Harvard Square.

Maher, Robert E. Griffin Jr. and Marci Griffith Loeber also with Cushman & Wakefield's Capital Markets Group, represented the seller and procured the buyer.