President Michael Grill tells GlobeSt.com that Fairlane is eyeing similar assets as part of a plan to accommodate office and industrial tenants seeking to escape rising rental rates.

"We're out buying again," stresses Grill, who relays that the path has not been easy, particularly because the crush of institutional capital has abandoned its core-centric mantra in a desperate quest for yield. That has driven pricing for the sort of buildings Fairlane specialized in buying during earlier cycles to unreasonable levels, he explains, requiring the pursuit of properties way off the institutional radar screen. "My options in Boston are extremely limited," says Grill, who secured the Newton property in an off-market deal orchestrated by John Nealon of W.J. Nealon Commercial for the buyer and Warren Brown of Boston Commercial Realty on behalf of Fairlane.

Value-add was a consistent component of previous Fairlane investments such as 98 North Washington St. in Boston's North Station and buildings on Broad and Water streets that were harvested earlier this decade, hut the latest campaign essentially takes that challenge up a notch. "Properties with serious due diligence issues are the ones I want to look at," says Grill, anticipating those lacking fatal flaws can be repositioned given the proper attention. Grill says likely prospects may have been owned indefinitely by a user who has deferred maintenance and would entertain a buyout, as in the case of the Newton property at 59-83 Chapel St.