Armatron Leases 56,000 SF

MALDEN, MA-Armatron International takes 56,000 sf of space at 1 Highland Ave. in a lease deal that demonstrates the continued strength of the industrial market.

The company, which was once the American Radio Co. and now develops a line of outdoor products for the home, took a 10-year lease on space in the Townline Plaza, a 135,000-sf shopping center that was once home to Caldor’s and Star Market. Caldor’s went out of business two years ago and Star Market closed its doors at the center as well. “It was kind of dead for retail,” Phillip Burgess, president of locally based Burgess Properties, tells GlobeSt.com. Burgess represented Maldex LP, an affiliate of S.R. Weiner & Associates in the deal.

Bally’s Fitness recently took the 25,000 sf of space vacated by Star Market, and Child Development Centers leased the 10,000 sf that had been taken by Fleet Bank and a liquor store which left S.R. Weiner & Associates Inc., the owner of the property, with another 78,000-sf of space to fill. The state took 22,000 sf for the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind but Burgess says that the balance of the space could have gone either for office or industrial use. “People looked at it for use as office space,” he notes.