Cristina Paquette, a spokesperson for Bain & Co. tells GlobeSt.com that the management consulting firm, based here and in New York, has signed a letter of intent for the top four floors of the building.

If the deal goes through, it will be a tremendous coup for the building, which had the bad luck to come online during one of the city's worst markets in years. "This building was a good project that was delivered at a difficult time," Bill Motley, vice president of the downtown brokerage group at Spaulding & Slye Colliers, tells GlobeSt.com. Motley points out that Bain is a "top shelf organization" and its tenancy in the building will give credence to this project.

The building was developed by Sullivan Properties, Peabody Construction and Heritage Property Investment Trust but it went through what an industry source tells GlobeSt.com were some "ownership issues" recently, and Heritage currently owns 96% of the building. Heritage is a real estate investment trust for the New England Teamsters pension fund. Calls to the teamsters fund were not returned by press time but the industry source notes that there was some contention between the owners over decisions regarding the building and the fund bought out the other two owners.

While Bain's tenancy will help 131 Dartmouth, it still has another two-thirds of the building to lease. According to Spaulding & Slye's most recent figures, vacancy rates in the Back Bay are at 14.7%, just slightly below the financial district's 15.1%. The building has to contend with large blocks of space in the Prudential Tower, Copley Place and the John Hancock Tower. Digitalis and Gillette also recently put large blocks of sublease space on the market. "There is competition," says Motley. "It's always a challenge to get companies to move over from the central business district to the Back Bay. Now its even worse.

Paquette declined to reveal the lease rate but Motley says that the going rate for that type of space is now in the mid $30s to mid $40s per sf. Although, he says, "the Bain deal could be higher."