BEDFORD, MA-Much like the summer itself, Greater Boston's office market was on the cool side in many areas, but the atmosphere has been anything but frigid north of town. Third quarter figures released this week by several firms indicates that momentum felt at the mid-year point continued strong in the subsequent months for such communities as Bedford, Billerica, Chelmsford, Littleton and Lowell. The activity is good news for a technology heavy economy that suffered greatly in the wake of the recession that took hold in mid-2001 and still is felt in high vacancy levels despite the recent leasing.

“They are rebounding,” Richards Barry Joyce & Partners principal John Wilson says of the tech firms prevalent throughout the Interstate 495 North submarket. Thanks to 643,000 sf of net positive absorption in the quarter, I-495 North has reached almost one million sf in that regard for the year, according to Meredith & Grew, which reports brisk activity in the Route 128 North and Northwest corridors as well. Collectively, those three submarkets have enjoyed 3.06 million sf of positive net absorption to date in 2007, says M&G, and most brokers report substantial velocity that suggests the remaining quarter will also be helpful to landlords in those areas.

“There are some spot vacancies, but given the tenant activity level, we don't expect them to last very long,” says M&G SVP Matt Daniels, who is representing both tenants and landlords in various buildings throughout the northern regions. Crosby Drive and the Middlesex Turnpike in the Bedford and Burlington stretch near Route 3 are seeing vacancies get especially tight, says Daniels. That notion is seconded by CB Richard Ellis, whose research group says in its third quarter report that the expanded Route 3 corridor “is proving a credible escape” for tenants seeking better deals or larger opportunities than those found presently in such hot areas as Cambridge and Waltham. Jones Lang LaSalle, for example, puts the average asking rent for Waltham at $31.36 per sf versus $19.62 per sf in I-495 North.