Tishman Lands 129 KSF Tenant at Boston’s One Federal Street

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

In Boston’s recovering Financial District, 129,000 square feet of premier office space has just been claimed at One Federal Street. Tishman Speyer, owner of the 1.1 million-square-foot tower, just signed an agreement with Iron Mountain for the information storage and management company to occupy the space as its headquarters under an 11-year lease agreement.

Tishman has owned the 38-story tower, one of the largest in the city, since acquiring it from Jamestown for $514 million in 2006. The trophy-quality office property has maintained its sheen over its 36-year existence through periodic renovations, the last of which took place in 2011. Today, occupants at One Federal include the likes of Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, Oppenheimer, US Bank and now, Iron Mountain.

Iron Mountain will relocate from its current digs less than one mile south of One Federal at 745 Atlantic Ave., in July 2013 and set up shop on the 6th and 7th floors and a segment of the 5th floor. “We sought a location that would allow us to keep our corporate headquarters in Boston as well as a building that would enable us to design an environment conducive to employee collaboration and engagement,” Sarah Abrams, senior vice president of global real estate with Iron Mountain, said in a prepared statement, adding that the company was drawn to the large floor plates at One Federal.

With Iron Mountain’s commitment, One Federal is now reportedly approximately 80 percent leased.

The Financial District is making a comeback, benefiting in no small part from “spillover” demand from the coveted Back Bay and Seaport submarkets, according to a third quarter report by commercial real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which represented Iron Mountain in the lease transaction. Digital and physical data management provider Iron Mountain fits right in with what JLL describes as the changing face tenancy in the Financial District. Companies like eBay, which signed a 120,000-square-foot lease at One International during the third quarter for its relocation to the Financial District, are leading the charge.

“As Boston’s high-tech employment has grown by 18 percent in the last two years, it is the tech tenants such as eBay that are filling space that would have been filled in the past with those in the financial and legal services sectors, sectors which have been stagnant in growth,” as per the JLL report. “A couple more moves by large users that are anticipated will significantly improve fundamentals by year-end.”