80,000-SF Buy Starts Fairlane Investment Plan

NEWTON, MA-After assembling, revamping and divesting a 300,000-sf portfolio of class B office buildings in Boston over the past decade, local investment group Fairlane Properties LLC is back on the prowl for product, as evidenced by the $7-million purchase of an 80,000-sf office/flex building in this inner-suburban community.

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.