"We are very happy about it," Aegean founder Costas Alexakos tells GlobeSt.com after his firm cemented a deal that has been underway for several months. Alexakos acquired 285 Summer St. from a group of Payette principals who had leased the space back to the firm until 2011. Signed in 1991, the lease rate is substantially below market, Alexakos acknowledges, but he explains Aegean is buying for the building's future, a bet based on the quality of the structure and presence in one of the Boston's most vibrant districts. "We are comfortable with it," he says of the patience mandated.

The per-sf price of about $267 is one reason Alexakos can take such a long-range view, he says. The figure likely would have been higher were the Payette lease shorter or closer to the market average, with Fort Point Channel space now fetching more than $40 per sf. In its just-released first quarter survey, Jones Lang LaSalle puts the average asking rate for the district at $47.71 per sf. While valuable in its own right, a level of parking in 285 Summer St. also impacted the per-sf pricing, according to observers familiar with the building.

Whatever the figure, Payette principal Thomas Payette was ebullient over the outcome, praising the Richards Barry Joyce & Partners investment sales team of Richard Bradbury and Richard Herlihy. "We were very happy with the job they did," he says. "They definitely served us well." Herlihy tells GlobeSt.com that 285 Summer St. received considerable attention from investors bearing a similar affinity for the district as Aegean Capital. "There was a lot of activity and a lot of bidders," he says.