Execs See Few Roadblocks for Suburban Boston

NEWTON, MA-Meredith & Grew brought downtown to the suburbs in more ways than one yesterday, as the Boston-based real estate services firm sponsored a review of the industry’s performance over the normally torpid summer stretch, with a focus on the suburban sector. The event at a hotel just off Route 128 was delayed briefly thanks to a city-sized traffic jam fomented by an unanticipated paving project, but when invitees finally filled the function room, they were told little stands in the way of urban tenants and core-focused investors from exploring Greater Boston’s outer reaches.

Among those anticipating a migration is M&G’s Lisa Campoli, an EVP in the investment sales group who delivered an assessment of that arena’s local performance. Campoli, who just brokered the sale of Boston’s 30 Winter St. office building to Irish investors for nearly $350 per sf, told the audience “extraordinary fundamentals” should keep the appetite for other downtown CRE strong. Still, Campoli said she believes the desire for growth–and yield accretion–will lure city centric capital to invest in suburban locales, including foreign funds such as the buyers backed by Anglo Irish Bank that paid $30.2 million for 30 Winter St

“I happen to think it’s a just a matter of time before they make their way to the suburbs,” Campoli offered of that cross-border capital stack. This will occur, she says, even though foreign buyers have traditionally been reluctant to make such a foray, and have been practically non-existent outside Boston in 2007 despite being a major source of activity for office, hotel and retail investments inside city borders.