DLA Piper represented MassDevelopment, Massachusetts’s economic development agency, and MassDevelopment/Saltonstall Building Redevelopment Corp.in the US$280 million ground lease sale of the former Saltonstall Building, located at 100 Cambridge Street, from Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation, an SEC Registered Investment Adviser.

As a result of the sale, all of the debt associated with the project will be paid off, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will receive nearly US$90 million while retaining ownership of the underlying real estate. The sale covers the remaining 67 years of the lease through April 2082.

The Commonwealth closed the Leverett A. Saltonstall State Office Building, built in 1965, in 1999 due to asbestos contamination. Subsequently, the Commonwealth selected MassDevelopment through a competitive RFP process to redevelop the property at Cambridge and Bowdoin Streets in Boston.

MassDevelopment added a substantial retail and residential addition that extended the building out to Cambridge Street and provided a façade in keeping with the neighborhood character. The redeveloped property has nearly 600,000 square feet of office and retail space, and 75 residential condos, with 25% sold at affordable rates. MassDevelopment reopened 100 Cambridge Street in 2004. The building has been 100 percent leased since 2007.

100 Cambridge Street will remain a Class A office building, and the building’s existing leases will continue. The Commonwealth will continue to lease floors two through 12 of the 600,000-square-foot property until 2052. The redeveloped open space at the rear of 100 Cambridge Street, including the Garden of Peace, a memorial to victims of homicide, will also remain in place after this transaction. All of the residential units were sold following redevelopment and are not part of the current ground-lease assignment.

Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation is an SEC Registered Investment Adviser with experience in real estate investment, finance, development, construction management, and asset management.

MassDevelopment, the state’s finance and development agency, works with businesses, nonprofits, financial institutions, and communities to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth.

The DLA Piper team representing MassDevelopment included: John Rattigan, Jr., Mark Tang, Bruce Wickersham and Paul Momnie (all Boston).