Cambridge Rents Soar Past $50 per SF

In some respects, it is a good thing that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located in Cambridge. With office rents in the city continuing to rise exponentially, it may soon take a mathematical wizard or two to quantify the numbers accurately.

“At current rates, premier property rates in Cambridge will soon exceed $70 per sf,” says Darryl Morse, director of the Boston office of Insignia/ESG. According to figures released this week by his firm, the average price for class A office space in Cambridge is now $51.49 per sf, up dramatically from the $34.21 per sf average posted at the mid-year mark. Top-tier properties are already signing deals in the $60 per sf range with no signs of slowing down.

Ted Wheatley, a principal with the Codman Co., agrees that Cambridge has come a long way from the early 1980s, when most commercial space was comprised of aging industrial buildings and retail supporting Harvard and MIT. Largely because of those famous schools, which have spun off a number of internationally known high-tech and biotech companies, demand for office space is as crisp there today as anywhere in the country.