A July 2015 Boston City Properties report described rising Boston office rents after a series of high-value property acquisitions. It attributed the market figures to commercial real estate firm DTZ and distinguished high-rise office space from low-rise and Class B space.
Office rents reported in the second quarter
The original article placed average low-rise and Class B office rents in the low-to-mid $40-per-square-foot range. It reported high-rise office rents averaging $90 or more per square foot. The source did not explain the lease terms or rent calculation basis, so those figures should not be used to estimate the cost of a current lease.
Reported annual Class B rent increases differed by area: about 20% around South Station, 21% in the Financial District and 12% around North Station. Direct average rents were said to be up about 5% in nine of twelve Boston sub-areas.
Leasing activity and vacancy
The report gave second-quarter net absorption as 733,765 square feet and year-to-date absorption as approximately 1.2 million square feet. Net absorption describes the change in occupied space, not simply the total area of leases signed; the original article blurred that distinction.
Its reported office inventory exceeded 164 million square feet, with 14.1% vacant. Technology firms were said to account for around 23% of large leases. The source did not define the inventory's geographic boundary or the size threshold for a large lease.
Cambridge and suburban comparisons
The article described $2.2 billion in second-quarter Cambridge real estate activity and cited 16.3% growth in East Cambridge without identifying what the growth measure represented. Cambridge is a separate municipality; the source's wording did not make that distinction clearly.
For suburban office space, it reported rents rising approximately 4% from the previous year, with an average of $22.62 per square foot. These historical comparisons are not evidence that a particular Boston or suburban office is available at those prices.
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