The joint venture purchased the vacant property for a reported $25.5 million in 2006. Cushman & Wakefield represented them in the purchase and will also be marketing the property for the JV.

The computer company plans to consolidate numerous offices--approximately 3,400 of its 5,000 Massachusetts employees--into the building as their other leases expire, according to National Development. The company explains that it is currently doing a full interior "gut renovation" of the facility and that IBM will inhabit the property in a "phased in" approach taking on "100,000 to 110,000 sf by November," then staggering the rest of IBM's consolidation as their other leases expire.

The Boston-suburban submarkets have attracted attention from companies attempting to keep their businesses within the Boston-metro area. Resolve Technology decided to move its headquarters from Boston to Needham, MA and Arbor Network is merging its Lexington, MA office and its Merrick, NH office into a single, Chelmsford, MA headquarters. Meanwhile, Epsilon is continuing its search for 140,000 sf, possibly in nearby Woburn, MA for its new headquarters, although CRA decided that Boston was the right fit and renewed their lease in the John Hancock Building. The asking price for the property is undisclosed at this time, but a comparable sale in Framingham, MA of the Maric Portfolio--399,686 sf of office space--garnered around $82 million in May of this year, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle Q2 2008 market report.