Jedwards is presently based in neighboring Quincy in a 17,000-sf facility at 39 Broad St. "They are doing really well," says Lincoln Property Co. broker Ned Halloran, who joined colleague Gian Starita in negotiating the deal on behalf of the seller and also procuring the buyer. The trick was in finding a viable property to accommodate Jedwards' growth, explains Halloran, who says Lincoln ultimately learned that the tenant at 141 Campanelli Dr. was willing to terminate its lease prior to the year-end expiration date. Faced with an empty building on its hands in a few months, Formalwear opted to cement the agreement. "That market is extremely tight," says Halloran. "There just is not much available for sale."

Jedwards, which dates its involvement in the fish oil industry back to World War II, is a distributor of specialty products to the food, dietary supplement and cosmetic industries. Other products include cocoa butter, numerous olive oils, shark cartilage and even more exotic elements such as mussel powder and sea cucumber. Customers include health food stores such as GNC, restaurants and spas. A health conscious country has led to increased popularity for such products, and Halloran says the firm is taking advantage of those trends.

The investment sales market as a whole has been slow in Greater Boston in 2008, but Halloran says he is actually encouraged by the activity in the first quarter. The Braintree building is the second multimillion-dollar transaction brokered by Halloran and Starita thus far, having represented both sides in the January sale of 5 Campanelli Circle in Canton. That 55,000-sf property traded for $6.2 million, as reported in the Jan. 10 issue of GlobeSt.com. "We've had a really great start to the year," says Halloran, especially when combined with a series of leases also brokered by Lincoln in the South Shore.