The A.T. Cross headquarters in Lincoln, which went through a purchase-and-partial-leaseback deal in 2007, will get its first new tenant this spring, the building’s owner, Providence’s Gray’s Point Investments LLC, and broker CB Richard Ellis – New England announced last week.
About 154,000 square feet of the 281,000-square-foot building is still occupied by A.T. Cross. By April, Zebra Technologies Corporation, a business-printing supply company based in Vernon Hills, Ill., will move its office in Warwick – at 30 Plan Way – to a 39,700-square-foot space at the Lincoln building, which is now called Albion Crossing.
“We’re pleased that Zebra has decided to stay in-state,” Gray’s Point President Robert Manning said last week. “That’s a great vote of confidence for us.”
He said his investment firm, in a partnership with Washington, D.C.-based Perseus Realty Partners, bought the building in February 2007 for $15.7 million. Norton, Mass.-based CW Capital was the lender.
And, even with a state- and country-wide commercial real estate slowdown, Manning still has confidence in the value of the building.
“The northern Rhode Island market isn’t a lot different” than it was when we bought it, he said. “We bought this because there was a shortage of large-floor-plate commercial space in the state outside the downtown area and even in the downtown area. It was a niche we had been looking to fill and we thought there was a need.”
When Manning’s firm bought the building, it was expecting it would take about three years until it was 100 percent rented. He said last week that he still intends to have it full within that period.
“Cross still has 55 percent of the property,” he said, “so we were stabilized on day one with this project.”
The Zebra deal was brokered by CB Richard Ellis – New England’s Providence Senior Vice President and Partner Alden Anderson Jr. He says there is continued interest in the remaining 87,300 square feet and that he’s been giving tours of the space to prospective lessees.
“But I think one of the challenges in the market today is that companies have been very cautious about making quick decisions,” he said. “I think that in light of the economic climate that we’re in, we feel good in regards to interest in the property and are continuing to push forward.”
Anderson said that the ratio of firms looking for space in either Providence or the suburban markets hasn’t changed since the recession set in.
“But there is greater availability today in the suburban market than there is in the downtown market,” he said. “So the difference that you have between the downtown market and the suburban is that if you’re a tenant looking in the suburbs you have more options to consider.”
The area of the building vacated by A.T. Cross had been factory space that has since undergone an estimated $9 million renovation. That renovation, designed by the Providence architectural firm RGB, included replacing all the windows, gutting and replacing the walls and replacing the HVAC system, Manning said. “Going from a factory to an A-grade office, you have to take a lot of stuff out the back door,” he added.
That renovation took about a year. Then it took an additional six months to bring in the first tenant, Zebra, which signed a lease on Dec. 17. The remainder of the space is ready for build-to-suit tenants like Zebra, which has office and laboratory space, Manning said.
“The characteristic of the project is that it has large floor plates,” he said. “Any user that needs space above 22,000 square feet and needs contiguous floor space has very limited options in the state and we’re one of the primary ones – one of the only suburban ones of this quality.” •
