MetroWest office market leases increase 38K square feet
Grant Welker
TJX's Framingham headquarters, among the region's largest employers. MetroWest added 38,000 square feet of office space in the first quarter of the year but still has less leased office space than it did a year ago.
The office market along Interstate 495 in MetroWest added a net positive of 38,000 square feet of leased office space in the first quarter of the year, according to a report by Boston-based Transwestern Consulting Group.
The net growth along the entire 495 corridor of 133,000 square feet exceeded growth in Boston or Cambridge, but it was still a small increase. Occupancy-level growth was stagnant at just 0.1 percent.
Most of the 495 corridor growth took place in Boston's northern suburbs, with less growth in MetroWest.
Despite adding a net of 38,000 square feet of leased space in the first three months of the year, MetroWest's office market is still hurting. In the past 12 months, the region has lost more than 320,000 square feet of leased space, according to Transwestern's report on Friday.
Two new leases in the western 495 region noted in the report was video game firm Disruptor Beam's planned move into 30,600 square feet in Framingham and electronics testing provider Speedline Technologies moving into 40,000 square feet in Hopkinton.
The 495 area's vacancy rate of 22 percent lags the rest of the Boston area market, which otherwise average just over half that rate, according to Transwestern.
Lease prices along the 495 corridor continue to trail the greater region. Average per-square-foot costs for Class A, or the most desirable, space was $21.92 along 495, compared to $43.75 for the region as a whole.
Cambridge's Kendall Square continues as a leader for the region, both for occupancy rate (1.9 percent) and per-square-foot costs ($77.08).
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