The property-- situated one mile west of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one mile east of Harvard University and Harvard Square--was developed and is managed by locally based Samuels Property Group LLC. Company principals Jonathan H. Samuels and Francis N. Mastroianni purchased the building two years ago for $12 million and renovated it to create a mixed-use development. "They completely renovated it," Legg Mason Real Estate Services/Spectrum Financial's senior vice president Stanley J. Sidel tells GlobeSt.com. Sidel arranged the mortgage with Bank of America. "The only thing left standing were the exterior walls."

The building now contains approximately 125,000 sf of office, retail and health-club space and is fully leased. Among its tenants are Harvard University, which occupies over 70,000 sf of office space, The Gap and Gap Kids, Boston Sports Club and Computer Recognition Systems. While Sidel declined to reveal terms, he says that because the tenants did their own buildout the lease rate is lower than it should be.

Legg Mason Real Estate Services/Spectrum Financial is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baltimore-based Legg Mason, Inc and arranges real estate financing for mixed use projects, shopping centers, specialty retail properties, office buildings, industrial buildings, warehouses, corporate headquarters, and apartments.