"It's really ready for someone to buy and fit up," explains CBRE/New England principal Gary Lemire, who is handling the assignment with CBRE/New England principals Patrick Cavanagh and Mark Reardon. Besides plenty of value-added capital aiming to take advantage of Greater Boston's economic rebound, Lemire cites the north suburban Boston office market as a particularly attractive area at present after an impressive 2007. "The Route 3 market has picked up quite a bit, and there is a lot of interest for quality, modern space," he says. Owner of a Tewksbury construction company and developer of several suburban Boston commercial assets, Cormier designed 95 Billerica Ave. to offer a flexible layout and such high-end features as a two-story atrium, relays Lemire. The landscaped, 13-acre site is just two miles from the Interstate 495 interchange.

Although its vacancy rate of 18.8% is still above the overall suburban average of 15.5% in the latest CBRE Greater Boston office overview, Route 3 North had the third highest amount of net positive absorption among 10 submarkets tracked in the assessment of 191.5 million sf. The 411,000 sf absorbed last year made up the bulk of the 675,000 sf of positive absorption in the Metro North region of 37.7 million sf. Despite all that velocity, Route 3 remains the value leader for the northern tier at $15.43 per sf, compared to $19.96 per sf overall for the north and $22.18 per sf for all of suburban Boston, according to CBRE.

Bolstered by a widening of Route 3 that took place during the brutal downturn earlier this decade, the submarket is gaining in popularity among cost-conscious tenants, says Lemire, while a lack of new construction is expected to further enhance 95 Billerica Ave.'s allure among investors able to tackle the completion effort. Acceding that the pace of investment sales has dipped dramatically over 2007, Lemire says he nonetheless anticipates that some owners such as Cormier will test the financial waters in the coming months, especially in hot sectors such as Route 3.