Lloyd Amster, manager partner for the joint venture that ownsthe 190,000-sf, 12-story building, says that itsmultimillion-dollar renovation program has paid tremendousdividends. The partnership--SoNo Equities LLC and 1122 AssociatesLLC--acquired the property for approximately $7 million in February1999. At that time the building was about 50% occupied. Since then,the ownership conducted upgrades on the building's HVAC system,common areas, roof and waterproofing operations and also broughtfiber-optic technology into the building. Today, the building is82% occupied.

He acknowledges that the 50 Washington St. property hadexperienced its share of troubles and has gone through a host ofownership changes since it first opened its doors in the early1970s. However, the introduction of high-speed communicationsinfrastructure at the building has been one of the keys to itsrecent turnaround.

Amster notes that the building was approximately 90% leasedearlier this year, but recently took back some space due to thefailure of several dot-com tenants.