The mixed-use complex is leased for 10 years to Globalware Solutions, but through efficiencies that company had found most of 148 Ward Hill to be surplus, explains Cushman & Wakefield Senior Director Richard Ruggiero, who represented the sublessor along with C&W Director Matthew Adams. Colliers Meredith & Grew AVP Christopher Lawrence was agent for Spinnaker Management, which struck a five-year agreement to occupy a mix of light assembly and warehouse in the two-story facility. Globalware is retaining the area not used by Spinnaker for its own use.

Although most industrial market reports for Greater Boston showed negative net absorption in the opening quarter, including a Jones Lang LaSalle survey estimating minus 77,000 sf for I-495 North, Ruggiero says velocity in the region has been brisk. "I'm encouraged by the activity out there right now," Ruggiero tells GlobeSt.com, particularly among users needing 30,000 to 50,000 sf. Negotiations are tending to take longer, Ruggiero accedes, but he voices confidence that a number of pending requirements will land as the mid-year mark approaches.

JLL had the 60.8-million-sf industrial sector it covers down by 1.34-million-sf absorption for the first quarter, with six of the seven submarkets in the red. C&W reviews 244.6 million sf of industrial in Greater Boston and puts the overall quarter down by 395,000 sf. Eight of the 14 submarkets it tracks were on the negative side. The surveys differ substantially for I-495 North, which C&W has at positive 159,000 sf for Q1 in a review of 43 million sf. According to C&W, the vacancy rate for I-495 is now 13.5%, above the overall suburban Boston average of 12.3%, but lower than the 15.3% rate posted in Q1 2007. "It's a healthy market," says Ruggiero.