German Fund Buys Another Boston Waterfront Asset

By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

101 Seaport Blvd., Boston © 2015 Jeffrey S. Adams

Boston—In an acquisition worth $452 million, Union Investment Real Estate GmbH of Hamburg has purchased from Skanska USA Commercial Development the Class A, 440,000-square-foot 101 Seaport Blvd. office building in Boston’s Seaport District, both companies announced Tuesday. Union Investment made the purchase on behalf of  its Unilmmo: Europa open-ended real estate fund.

The building is predominantly occupied by PwC, which signed a 15-year lease for 333,000 square feet around the time the building was officially announced by Skanska, and has its main Northeast office there.

Skanska had bought the site at the southeast corner of Seaport Boulevard and Boston Wharf Road in December 2013, for $33 million. Construction on the 17-story building began in fall 2014 and was completed late last year. The property, which also includes roughly 21,000 square feet of retail, is part of the 23-acre master-planned Seaport Square project.

In addition to PwC, 101 Seaport has long-term leases with Skanska itself and with Red Thread/Steelcase. The property reportedly is the first office building in Boston to be certified LEED Platinum.

“Seaport is Boston’s innovation district. It is where the younger, well-educated workforce of the city, who value a central location, excellent transport links and proximity to leisure and cultural venues, want to be. From medical to bio-tech, companies from a huge range of sectors have discovered the many benefits of the location,” Matthew Scholl, head of Investment Management Americas at Union Investment, said in a prepared statement.

Just last week, Commercial Property Executive reported on the purchase by Union Investment, also on behalf of Unilmmo: Europa, of One Lovejoy Wharf in Boston, a renovated 235,000-square-foot building occupied by Converse as its headquarters.

Union Investment’s first acquisition in Boston was of the Godfrey Hotel, in a sale-leaseback with Oxford Capital Group LLC and an affiliate of Walton Street Capital LLC, last December.

Union Investment’s actively managed real estate portfolio in the United States now totals 15 properties worth about $3.8 billion.