Building sales show strengthening commercial market

The Travelers office building in downtown Fall River and the former Genzyme factory in the Fall River Industrial Park represent two very different, but crucial, pieces of the city’s economic future.
Both changed hands this past summer in deals city officials say will help stabilize and strengthen the local commercial real estate market.
“I think they are significant.” said Kenneth Fiola Jr., executive vice president of the Fall River Office of Economic Development, about the sales. “Both are located in strategic areas and should help maintain or grow jobs.”
Sitting at the corner of South Main Street and Pocasset Street, one block from where Interstate 195 cuts through the heart of the city, the Travelers building is as centrally located as Fall River offices can be.
But like many other buildings built for use by a single company, the four-story, 1974 brick building had become underutilized in recent years as owner Travelers insurance steadily cut back on the size of the local workforce.
The new owner of the building, Fall River-based First Bristol Corp., is betting that with Travelers as an anchor tenant leasing in half the building, the office market is strong enough to support an estimated $2 million renovation needed to rent the rest to smaller office users.
For the city, the deal has two benefits: keeping a still substantial Travelers presence downtown while adding new investment and, hopefully, additional office workers and their foot traffic to the neighborhood.
In the industrial park, the Genzyme building was not just underutilized, but has been vacant for a decade since the Cambridge, Mass., biotech giant sold the unit that made cardiothoracic surgery devices there in 2003. Genzyme itself was acquired by French drugmaker Sanofi in 2011.
Fall River manufacturer Klear Vu Corp. purchased the building for $1.75 million, less than one-quarter of the $8.4 million assessed value of the property, which includes 13.5 acres of land. Genzyme paid $7 million for the property in 1991, according to assessors records.
But despite the property’s dramatic drop in value, Fiola said having the building occupied and used will help the industrial park.
“The purchase and use for manufacturing takes a property and re-energizes life into it,” Fiola said. “Because it is a high-profile property, that helps the image of the whole park.” A maker of seat cushions, Klear Vu is moving its factory into the 170,000 square-foot former Genzyme plant from an old four-story mill building of similar floor area in the east end of the city near the intersection of I-195 and Route 24.
“We are looking to be in a location on one floor where we can use wracking systems, conserve space and distribute,” President Bob Cooper said.
Fiola said the city is not providing any direct assistance for Klear Vu, but the state may provide tax-increment financing against the value of new capital equipment purchased to grow.
Fiola said the owner of the Alden Street building Klear Vu was leasing is looking at converting it to residences.
At the Travelers building, Fall River helped make the First Bristol deal work by leasing the company at least 150 spaces of parking, with the option for an additional 250 spaces, at a city-owned garage at 1 Pearl St.
Fiola said First Bristol will pay $35 per space each month over the first five years of the deal with inflation increases after that.
The Travelers building is one of three office buildings First Bristol owns in downtown Fall River, including the Bank of America Building at 10 North Main St. and professional offices at 222 Milliken Blvd.
First Bristol President and CEO James Karam said he is encouraged by increased demand for space in the area.
Karam declined to discuss terms of the sale, but according to documents filed with the Bristol County Registry of Deeds, First Bristol paid Travelers $1.2 million for 99 South Main St. T less than the 500 workers at Genzyme’s peak, but still significant for a city in major need of jobs he property had an assessed value of $8 million.
Karam said he sees the Travelers building attracting regional tenants interested in a central location with highway access, visibility and parking at lower rents than Providence or Boston.
“I think it can attract a lot of back-office operations, such as call centers and places that benefit from larger footprints, wide-open spaces, visibility and access to the highway,” Karam said.
First Bristol has developed more than 3.5 million square feet of shopping centers, offices, apartment buildings and hotels in southern New England. Recent projects include the new Hilton Homewood Suites Hotel in Middletown and the new Walmart shopping plaza on Brayton Avenue in Fall River. •

No posts to display