Lee Partners of New England

Communities United, Inc. –  a 501 c (3) non-profit organization has recently expanded their administrative office HQ location at 4 Militia Drive, Lexington, MA – and extended their lease commitment to ensure that this location will be their administrative office home-base far into the future.  The expanded space is expected to be completed and occupied during the first quarter of 2022.

Communities United Executive Director Terri Natale received Board approval to move forward with this commitment.  Commercial real estate broker Michael Hoban with Equity Industrial Partners represented Communities United in the lease transaction; and Bruce Lee with Lee Partners of New England represented the landlord 4 Militia LLC.

About Communities United, Inc.:

Communities United, Inc. – CUI’s mission is to provide high quality education and family services to a diverse population of approximately 300 children: of infant, toddler and preschool age, from eleven unique suburban communities along the Rte. 128 belt.  These communities include Arlington, Belmont, Brookline, Burlington, Lexington, Needham, Newton, Waltham, Watertown, Wellesley and Woburn.

AllPro Corporation – a nationwide distributor of cleaning supplies has expanded into an additional 10,000 sq ft. of warehouse space at 12 Industrial Drive, Sterling, MA.  The company now will be leasing the property as a single-tenant occupying the entire building consisting of a total of 45,000 sq ft.  Bruce Lee Managing Director of Lee Partners of New England represented AllPro along with Shirley Smith, Director of National Accounts with the Avocat Group, Tampa, FL.  The expansion will take place during the first quarter of 2022.

AllPro Corporation is a B2B cooperative consisting of a network of over 270 independent paint and decorating products dealers throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and parts of Europe.

Blue Therapeutics has committed to occupy direct office space at the Waltham Watch Factory  at 203 Crescent Street, Waltham – an outstanding location for the company to continue HQ operations.  Blue Therapeutics previously subleased space in the building.  Bruce Lee, Managing Partner for Lee Partners of New England LLC provided consulting services for Blue Therapeutics and Dan Krysiak, Senior Managing Director with Newmark assisted the Landlord – Watch City Ventures.

Blue Therapeutics is a IND-stage drug discovery and development platform advancing transformative new medicines.  Blue’s proprietary receptor-interactomics approach is creating deep insights to deliver superior outcomes for patients.

IDEX Biometrics will relocate its US corporate offices from 287 to 200 Ballardvale Street,
Wilmington, MA during the first quarter of 2022. The new space will provide a more efficient and productive environment for employees within a building that offers multiple new amenities for IDEX.

Commercial brokers involved were Bruce Lee with Lee Partners of New England
representing IDEX, and Brian Tisbert Managing Director with JLL representing the landlord Griffith Properties LLC. Marci Griffith Loeber, Managing Principal, and Donna Pennino, Principal with Griffith Properties LLC also represented the Landlord and wholehearted supported the entire relocation process.

The new office and electronic lab space, leased on a long term basis, will contain U.S. HQ
corporate offices, administrative support staff, and a state-of-the art engineering laboratory. IDEX Biometrics is pioneering the advancement of biometric technology that will provide secure, convenient, and unique biometric authentication solutions for credit card transactions in the near-term future around the world.

The IDEX relocation internal team that reviewed multiple alternative sites over the past year was guided in a cooperative internal effort led by Office Manager Kristen Ryan, CFO Jamie Simms, and CEO Vince Graziani, supported by the entire senior engineering management group.

IDEX is a public company registered (IDBA) on the NASDEX exchange.

Office Building Sale

5 Militia Drive, Lexington, MA

$4,125,000

Bruce Lee, Managing Partner of Lee Partners of New England, represented both the buyer and seller in a sale of this 22,720 sq ft office building in downtown Lexington, MA. on June 30, 2021.

The buyer was 5 Militia Drive LLC Managing partner Matthew Curtis; and the seller was Brett Douglass, Trustee of the 5 Militia Drive Trust.

The property, a three level office building on 1.5 acres, is located along with 4 other similar
offices buildings on Militia Drive and it is a short walk to the Lexington Common where the first battle of the Revolutionary war between the United States and England was fought in 1770’s.

The office building was built by Arthur and Jewell Douglass during the 1970’s and this is the first time that it has been sold to another owner.

Matthew Curtis, the new owner, was very excited to purchase this property, especially since he purchased the adjacent office property 4 Militia Drive during 2020. He feels that there are operational efficiencies having both adjacent office buildings within his growing list of commercial properties.

Bruce Lee, with Lee Partners offered that 5 Militia Drive is a very well maintained property that the Douglass family kept in excellent condition including recently upgraded infrastructure components. The two-story grand front-entranceway was originally commissioned and advocated by Jewel Douglass.

Lee commented, “This entranceway provides a first-class professional presence for the entire building – and when combined with the well-cared for and maintained landscaping, the overall first impression when visiting the property is quite impressive.”

For additional information on this property sale Bruce Lee can be reached at: Bruce@leepartners.com

Bruce Lee, Managing Director of Lee Partners of New England, represented AllPro Corporation in their negotiations to lease a new 35,000 sq ft distributions facility at 12 Industrial Drive, Sterling, MA. Bruce teamed up with Shirley Smith, Director of National Accounts with the Avocat Group, Tampa, FL in their joint representation of AllPro. David Stubblebine, President, and James Stubblebine, Vice President with The Stubblebine Company represented the property owner GFI Partners in the long-term 8 year lease transaction. AllPro anticipates moving into this new facility during June 2021.

AllPro Corporation is a B2B cooperative consisting of a network of over 270 independent paint and decorating products dealers throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and parts of Europe.

Bruce Lee of Lee Partners of New England, working closely with senior management ofBlue Therapeutics, helped to identify, negotiate, and secure their new HQ office space in Waltham at the Waltham Watch Factory office complex.  The transition from Cambridge, MA was completed in January. The search process during the 2020 pandemic was challenging but ultimately successful.  Blue Therapeutics is an expanding company with bright prospects for its future.  The space at the Waltham Watch Factory fit the need to have office space with “character” having high ceilings, brick walls, plenty of exterior light and a very “open feel” for the new office work environment.  Representing the sublandlord in the transaction was Scott Panneton of Lee & Associates located in Boston, MA. 

My commercial property tour in Waltham this week revealed two separate Class A office
building complexes – both with blockaded parking areas! This is the first time I have seen
anything like this in this market area. First we have had employee vacant desks and empty
building parking lots – and now parking lots are being barricaded! This is most likely for security reasons because tenants are not using the lots for employee parking. This highlights how the Pandemic has changed the dynamics and economics of the use of office space and the properties associated with tenants not occupying buildings. On another recent tour of the CrossPoint towers at the intersection of Rt. 3 and Rt 495 – where the one million plus square feet of office space is barely occupied and the parking lot is mostly vacant – the property manager mentioned one bright spot from his perspective – the buildings are using a lot less electricity and this is a big savings on the building’s operational expenses!

Soon these affects from an unforeseen pandemic will pass – and we will have increased office building occupancy and full parking lots again – but for now we need to continue to abide by healthcare professional safety recommendations, continue to work hard at our home offices, and prepare for a return to our corporate offices where we can interact with fellow employees in-person again and continue to collaborate, innovate, and provides services and products for the future as we have done in the past.

For Tenant office space decisions makers now is the time to negotiate for office space and lease terms for the future – because when the desks are re-occupied and the parking lots are not barricaded and full again, it will be much more difficult to lease cost effective office space as there will be fewer options and it will be more expensive. Now is a time for action!

I, like many of you have not visited my desk at my office for many months – it sits alone in my office in my mostly vacant office building where my work used to be completed – before Covid-19.  Meeting with clients in my conference room does not happen, saying hello to others working on my floor or while visiting the building cafeteria does not happen.  Seeing the office space cleaners does not happen.  Walking to close-by amenities does not happen and many are not open.  It would be easier to find a close-by parking space because so many fellow employees are also working from home offices, but I do not look for office parking space.

The current situation for office space users, as difficult as it is, will not last.  So many professionals are working so hard to find a way to overcome Covid-19 that, as they say, we shall overcome! 

In the meantime, responsible corporate and small business owners and senior staff having decision making responsibilities must plan for a brighter future – where many if not most employees will be back at a desk, working and collaborating with others in the office.  

Now is the time to review the current leasehold commitments and project your ideal future corporate and employee office requirements – and design an office occupancy path forward that can work as Covid-19 health and travel conditions are mitigated thru new therapies and the availability of a vaccine that works.  

Here is the review process:  

1. Review your lease document to fully understand your current responsibilities
2. Meet with a Commercial Real Estate broker/consultant to discuss your current and going forward obligations to your employees, stakeholders, and Landlord.
3. Obtain a consensus with your senior staff and other key employees as to how much and what type of office space can best fit your needs for the future as the Covid 19 crises becomes more manageable.
4. Review the local market landscape to understand current conditions and how the lack of demand for office space and the availability of sublease options may open up pockets of opportunity for either re-negotiations with your landlord or for a relocation to more appropriate office space to meet a re-evaluated company space requirement.
5. Review a current office space survey from your broker that identifies all the available office space alternatives in your market area that would be economically feasible to consider.
6. Narrow down the available office alternatives to a hand-full and do research on these options to make sure they are viable alternatives.
7. Schedule and visit available office buildings and tour the suites that could possibly meet your future needs.
8. Review and discuss a draft Request for Proposal with your broker, edit its content to make sure it conveys current and future office space needs, and then send it to a few alternatives that appear to meet your needs.
9. Upon return, review the responses with senior staff and your well-versed and experienced commercial real estate broker.
10. Either send a Request for Proposal to your current landlord, or if in close contact with your landlord, meet and commence negotiations to determine if it makes sense to remain in your existing space depending on the terms and conditions offered.  Prior to this meeting you will have the benefit of knowing the economics of other competitive offerings.
11. Over the course of hundreds of lease negotiations, I have found that the least stressful and disruptive path for office users planning for their future (pre-covid 19) would be to either renew or extend their office space lease.  Approximately 80% of all office leases are renewed or extended at the end of their lease term.  This still leaves 20% of all leases where alternative action takes place – relocation, downsizing, expanding, purchasing a property, committing to a ‘build to suit” property, or closing down operations entirely.
12. For a relocation path to be viable the cost savings associated with a relocation would have to offset the cost of moving – the move cost itself, new furniture, new IT infrastructure, business disruption due to the planning, evaluation of alternatives, senior management time devoted to the process, and allocating an internal move-coordinator or hiring an outside vendor to oversee the entire move process.  The numbers need to “add up” and employee “buy-in” would be a key consideration for any geographic move.

The combination of working with a very experienced commercial real estate broker, with your senior staff commitment to meet the covid-19 occupancy challenge, can and will result in a path forward to meet current and future occupancy needs and the “vacant desk” will become a relic of the past – you just need to get started now on the path outlined above.

We can help – my recommendations have assisted hundreds of companies in the suburban Boston market to identify and implement the best path forward when evaluating their occupancy options.

Vacant desks can and should be filled with hard working employees that are collaborating and using their talents and imagination to meet company objectives.  We can help with this transformation to a more productive and brighter future.

Bruce S. Lee

bruce@leepartners.com  781.290.8101 (cell phone direct)

Big Picture Framing will be moving into 1110 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA on January 1, 2021. Bruce Lee of Lee Partners conducted the search for the new retail location and helped Founder Bob Clayton negotiate the long term lease with building owner Gwen Marie, LLC. This location proved to be an ideal new store address for Big Picture Framing. Business has been strong for the regional retail chain throughout the 2020 Pandemic and this new retail store will help Big Picture Framing to continue to increase sales and better serve its Cambridge customers. The “Grand Opening” is just around the corner – positive news during the 2020 Pandemic – proving that smart business owners are moving forward and taking advantage of current market conditions to lease cost effective space at newly available locations.

Jeffrey Arsenault, Principal-Retail with Avison Young represented and negotiated for the
Landlord.