Copyright The Boston Globe
There’s a new kid in town — to be more specific, on Boston’s skyline — but the executives at Boston Properties (now called BXP) don’t seem worried about the potential rivalry. Barclays analyst Brendan Lynch asked BXP executives on their earnings call last week about their view of the high-end office-and-residential tower that real estate developer Hines has built at South Station, and how it might affect leasing dynamics in Boston. Translation: What kind of competition do you expect? Answer: Not much at all. So far, most of the nearly 700,000 square feet of office space in the tower remains unleased, though JPMorgan Chase is eyeing a big chunk of it. (Early tenants include law firm Jones Day, property insurer FM, and hedge fund manager Citadel.) Amenities include a one-acre private park that’s 120 feet above the street. Advertisement “It’s, I’m sure, going to be successful from an occupancy perspective at some point,” BXP president Doug Linde said. “There is a conversation, as I understand it, going on with a large financial institution to relocate there, not necessarily grow, but relocate there. The building hit the market at the absolute wrong time, and there’s a bunch of availability in the Financial District that it had to compete with.” In particular, BXP executive Bryan Koop doesn’t see much of an impact on his company’s portfolio, which includes the Prudential Center and 200 Clarendon (aka the Hancock Tower) in the Back Bay. It’s rare, he said, for significant office tenants to leave the Back Bay, and BXP has actually been asking some tenants if they want to give back space. What about BXP’s downtown towers, like 100 Federal, Atlantic Wharf, and Hub on Causeway? No worries. Koop said: “Our buildings [there] are leased up and tucked away for quite a few years now with limited space.” Advertisement This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene. Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
