BOSTON-An Irish investor has purchased an historic Downtown Crossing building for $32.6 million. The deal gives the new owner a landmark mixed use property with more than 95% occupancy in the center of one of the city's busiest shopping districts.
The unnamed buyer was among 21 investors bidding on the trophy asset, known as the Borders Building for the bookstore that occupies its prominent retail space. "It was a pretty interesting mix," Edward C. Maher Jr., with Cushman & Wakefield's Boston office tells GlobeSt.com of the pension funds, foreign bidders, private investors and REITs jostling for ownership of the 112,739 sf, 10-24 School St. building.
Interest in the property was strong, he says, because of the size of the deal, the mix of retail and office uses and the property's Downtown location. "This is a clear example of a top-quality Boston asset drawing international attention from today's most savvy investors," Maher says. "I can honestly say it was easily one of the most popular deals we've had in the last five years, maybe 10."
The historic limestone and granite clad building, situated along the city's historic Freedom Trail at the corner of School and Washington streets, is home to a 41,238-sf Borders Books-Music-Café superstore, the retailer's third largest such store in the US. The property overlooks Boston Irish Famine Memorial Park. It had been owned for the last 10 years by an institutional investor advised by LPC Realty Advisors, an affiliate of Lincoln Property Co. The property was put up for sale about three weeks ago after the pension fund's timeframe for holding the property elapsed, Maher says.
It was unclear what the unnamed Irish investor, who financed the purchase through Anglo Irish Bank, has planned for the property but given the building's 95.2% occupancy and its trophy condition, it will likely remain strictly an investment, Maher notes. In addition to Maher, the transaction was handled by Cushman & Wakefield's Capital Markets Group of Robert E. Griffin, Jr., Marci Griffith Loeber and Geoffrey Millerd, who exclusively represented the seller and procured the buyer.
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