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Less than two years after buying Newton's Riverside Center complex at a substantial discount, its new owners have secured a major leasing victory.
Owners Barings and Greatland Realty Partners signed a 12-year, 100K SF lease with Global Partners LP to relocate its headquarters from Waltham, the Boston Business Journal first reported.
A Fortune 500 company with a market cap of nearly $2B, Global Partners LP owns liquid fuel terminals and gas stations.
The deal is an expansion for the company, which occupies 72K SF at Intercontinental Realty Corp.'s Watermill Center, according to the BBJ. It plans to move more than 600 employees to the Waltham building starting in late 2026.
Global Partners Senior Vice President Max Slifka said in a statement that the space will support the expansion of its data analytics, sustainability, culinary innovation and real estate ventures teams.
“The move and associated buildout underscore our commitment to investing in our people, capabilities, and future growth,” Slifka said. “Our new hub will foster collaboration, innovation, and an energized company culture.
JLL's Sam Crossan, Scott Carpenter and Rob Walles represented the tenant in the deal, while CBRE represented the landlord.
The Riverside Center complex spans 515K SF across three buildings. It sits just off Route 128 and near Newton's Riverside MBTA station.
Barings and Greatland acquired the complex from Alexandria Real Estate Equities in June 2023 for $117.5M. They have invested over $16M on renovations, including a new fitness center, meeting spaces, a roof and an HVAC system.
Alexandria paid $235M for the complex in 2020 and had planned to redevelop it into a lab campus, but it said in an investor filing in 2023 — when it decided to sell the building — that market demand had "deteriorated considerably."
The office market has improved relative to the life sciences market over the last two years, with developers saying at a December Bisnow event that some office-to-lab conversions have struggled to secure tenants and may have to "backtrack" to their prior use.
Still, the suburban office market is facing high vacancy. CBRE's fourth-quarter report found a vacancy rate of 24.6% across the Boston suburbs, with a 25.5% rate in the Route 128 West market where Riverside Center is. That submarket recorded 378K SF of negative net absorption last year.
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