Gutierrez gains a coup in the signing of One Communications, not only by grabbing a large tenant, but by allowing it to alter its approach in leasing other tenants. "Signing such a large tenant, this allows us to sub-divide the floors for smaller tenants," Kerrigan enumerates, "which we really couldn't do before. Before, we were really hunting for larger tenants." Originally, he continues, the developer was looking for full-floor tenants willing to take 30,000 sf to more than 50,000 sf. Now that the top two floors are secured, Kerrigan tells GlobeSt.com, the owner is now looking for tenants as small as 15,000 sf.

There are no other tenants on the docket, as yet, but it has a close proximity to Route 128 and is attractive in Boston's suburban office submarket. "Realize, a lot of the buildings in suburban Boston were built in the mid-'80s," Kerrigan explains. "They are a quarter of a century old. Typically you have the original HVAC, original glass system, original roof." The age begins to show on these buildings, he observes, and money needs to be put into them, as opposed to 5 Wall St. "If you can get a brand new building from a known builder for the same-price or less, that's pretty compelling."

The Boston suburban office market has seen a recent push for consolidation, with Arbor Network merging its Merrick, NH-office with its Lexington, MA-office into a new Chelmsford, MA-office. IBM is pulling its numerous Massachusetts-based offices and placing them all at 550 King St. in Littleton, MA. Kerrigan explains a few advantages to merging offices, for example, with a larger requirement, a tenant can negotiate more favorable terms, as well as a communicational incentive to bring splintered offices under one roof. "There's no question, it's economies of scale," he says. "Instead of having four receptionists all over the suburban market, you have one."