"We had a remarkable amount of interest," Richards Barry Joyce & Partners EVP Richard Herlihy tells GlobeSt.com after the firm's investment sales team orchestrated the transaction. The "hotly contested" product resulted in an expeditious marketing and due diligence phase, explains Herlihy, who was joined in brokering the sale by RBJ colleagues Richard Bradbury, John Lashar and Paul Leone. A Boston-based real estate services firm, RBJ represented the seller and procured the buyer.

Registry of deeds records put the price at just under $68 million, or about $110 per sf. "I think everyone was happy," was all Herlihy would say on that aspect, declining to discuss financial details due to confidentiality agreements. The investment sales specialist did cite several factors that enhanced the competition, including a series of infrastructure improvements near Forge Park that have created wider roadways, turning lanes, a streamlined truck route and even a new overpass.

Forge Park "is much more accessible," thanks to the upgrades, says Herlihy. The master-planned development impressed suitors as well, he says, given its stature as one of the premier business campuses in the Interstate 495 South market. The sale encompassed 8, 9, 10, 15, 20 and 22 Forge Park, which were constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Three are flex buildings, and the remainder house distribution services. Credit tenants include Draka, General Cable, National Grid and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Occupancy of the portfolio is estimated at 75%.