Boston Office Market Hottest Since 2003

BOSTON-Global warming has nothing on this city’s office market, or so it would seem in a mid-year report released today by Richards Barry Joyce & Partners that shows positive absorption of near-record levels during the second quarter and continued rental accretion. RBJ’s overview also shows Boston’s recovery is spreading out as prime locations approach full occupancy.

“The numbers are big,” RBJ director of research Brendan Carroll tells GlobeSt.com, with 1.6 million sf of positive absorption between April and mid-year. That marks the sixth straight quarter of positive absorption, and the 5.1 million sf absorbed since halfway through 2006 is the most for any such period since 2001. “The metrics look good just about everywhere,” says Carroll, whose Boston-based firm tracked 630,000 sf of positive absorption in the city during the quarter, with 315,000-sf of that occurring in the Back Bay District, now among the strongest office markets in the country.

Besides the standard mid-year review, RBJ issued a special look dissecting office market trends since conditions began improving four years ago after the brutal recession that started the decade. Since the third quarter of 2003, a limited number of submarkets have enjoyed the lion’s share of leasing activity and rental rate gains, discloses RBJ, which refers to the top performers as the “hot markets.” They include Class A space in Boston’s Financial District and Back Bay, plus all categories of office product in East Cambridge, Burlington, Waltham and Woburn.