Reader SOAPBOX: Did GlobeSt.com Go Sensational?

BOSTON-Dear Editor:

Sensationalistic reporting [as appeared in Boston's Downtown Sublease Space Jumps 651%] is of little value, and only serves to excite the uninformed and unthinking. This is the same as suggesting that a building boom has caused office inventory in Newton, IA to jump by 600%, when in reality, a build-to-suit was completed for Maytag. Without a base number, a percentage increase is meaningless. The only thing that comes close to providing a base number is the 6% overall vacancy rate, which presumably includes the 651% increase in sublease space.

I have difficulty believing that anyone in research at Spaulding & Slye(the local Colliers office) would be so careless as to throw out thesenumbers without putting them into the proper context, which wouldsuggest that Mr. Moore’s comments were spun to say what the reporter wanted to say.