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GlobeSt.com Commercial Real Estate News and Property Resource
Last updated: June 3, 2008 11:54am

Calare Wins Building, Inks 61,000-SF Lease
By Joe Clements

STOUGHTON, MA-Chapter 7 bankruptcy doomed Hoboken Wood Flooring’s custom-built operations at 181 Campanelli Parkway, but the 61,000-sf office/warehouse building is about to enjoy a swift comeback, following its auction to Calare Properties. Hudson-based Calare paid $2.8 million for the property, and then subsequently leased the entire space to Isaac’s Moving & Storage for a five-year term.

"It worked out well for everyone," Calare principal Brian Poitras tells GlobeSt.com, in announcing the lease agreement after his firm closed on 181 Campanelli Parkway, a 7.3-acre complex which had come under the control of Middlesex Savings Bank through foreclosure. Calare was simultaneously seeking a new home for Isaac’s, and the footprint of the Stoughton structure ultimately met the tenant’s needs. There will be a capital improvements campaign on the property, which Hoboken Wood Flooring had owned since its construction in 1989. "It’s a great building," says Cushman & Wakefield Senior Director and South Shore broker Cathy Minnerly. Along with a two-story, 12,000-sf office section, the property has clear heights to 30 feet in the warehouse.

According to Poitras, CB Richard Ellis brokers Robert Gibson and Edward Jarosz alerted Calare to 181 Campanelli Parkway’s pending sale, which was orchestrated by Daniel J. Flynn Auctions of Quincy. Austin Smith of Newmark Knight Frank separately negotiated lease terms on behalf of Isaac’s.

The full-building lease offers a measure of momentum for the suburban south industrial region, a sector that Minnerly says is picking up following a sluggish opening quarter. C&W estimates negative net absorption of 47,000 sf for buildings in the Route 128 South submarket during Q1. The firm tracks just over 25 million sf in 337 buildings in the submarket, an inventory that is presently at 8.2% vacancy. Despite the slow start to 2008, the vacancy is still favorable compared to a 12.4% vacancy for all of suburban Boston industrial and the submarket’s 9.4% rate in Q1 2007.

Calare Properties has been in business since 2000, and Poitras says the company is interested in pursuing more acquisitions when appropriate. The firm specializes in building turnarounds, as evidenced in its sale earlier this year of 555 Main St. in Hudson for $5.3 million. The disposition came just over a year after acquiring the asset for $1.3 million and stabilizing the former Arrow Automotive headquarters with a 10-year lease, as reported by GlobeSt.com. The company also made one of the country’s final mega-investment buys prior to the market meltdown when Calare, KBS REIT and Hackman Capital Partners united on the $516 million purchase of an 11-million-sf industrial portfolio spread across the US.

Copyright © 2008 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

GlobeSt.com Commercial Real Estate News and Property Resource
Last updated: March 26, 2008 11:59am

Calare Cleans Up in $5M Industrial Deal
By Joe Clements

HUDSON, MA-Some value-add investments provide returns sooner—and greater—than others, and 555 Main St. would seem to fit that mode. The 108,000-sf industrial building has now traded for the second time since Jan. 2007 but at a sharply higher price than the $1.3 million paid barely a year ago by locally based Calare Properties, which has just divested the asset for $5.3 million.

Calare’s turnaround of the once vacant Arrow Automotive headquarters was even more immediate, as a full-building tenant signed on soon after 555 Main St. changed hands in the 2007 sale. The tenant committed to a 10-year deal and two options that each provide for additional five-year extensions. Calare’s approach was measured, however, with the firm monitoring the property for three years before determining the time was right to strike. A former Brownfields site, 555 Main St. has undergone a cleanup and monitoring process that began in the early 1990s.

The new owner of the asset is Lowfield Realty Group 555 Main St. Hudson LLC, another Massachusetts company whose agent is listed as Vincent CampoBasso of Leominster. Efforts to contact the buyer and Calare principal William Manley by press deadline were unsuccessful. One source says there is room for expansion of 555 Main St., but it is unclear how much new space could be heaped upon the 8.5-acre parcel.

While it may have delivered an impressive return, 555 Main St. was just one of the significant ventures involving Calare Properties last year. The firm was also a partner in the blockbuster $517 million acquisition of a nationwide industrial portfolio sold last summer by Equity Industrial Partners. Calare teamed with KBS Realty Advisors of Newport Beach, CA, and Hackman Capital to purchase dozens of properties en masse in what proved to be one of the last mega-deals completed prior to the market slowdown that continues to linger.

Copyright © 2008 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

CALARE PROPERTIES ACQUIRES ASHLAND TECHNOLOGY CENTER, ASHLAND, MA FOR $9.8MM

Hudson, MA January 24, 2006 - Calare Properties, has purchased the Ashland Technology Center, 200 Homer Avenue, Ashland, MA.

Ashland Tech Center is a 340,000 SF business center located on 12.9-acre site at the intersection of Homer Avenue and Route 135, within minutes of Route 9, Route 495, I-95 and the Mass Turnpike, and approximately 40 minutes from downtown Boston. The steel frame, brick and concrete buildings have been upgraded with new windows, new operating systems and new roof systems.

Ashland Technology Center was acquired on behalf of Calare Real Estate Fund III, LP, a real estate investment fund sponsored by Calare Properties. Calare Real Estate Fund III, LP is Calare Properties' third real estate investment fund.