BOSTON– With 3.5 million square feet across 22 projects, Boston is the nation’s 10th market for office deliveries in 2019, according to a report from Commercial Café. On the East Coast, Boston came in third after New York City and Washington D.C.
New York City expects 16 million square feet of new office space, according to the report.
Here are a few other key takeaways:
- Boston Properties’ Akamai Global Headquarters is the biggest office project expected to be delivered in Boston this year. The 453,768-square-foot development is scheduled for December and is the 45th largest in the country;
- In comparison, when it comes to last year’s completions Boston barely missed the top 10, coming in at #11 with 2.6 million square feet and 12 projects;
- The 460,000-square-foot MathWorks Lakeside Campus was the largest office project completed in 2018 in Boston.
The report said that since 2009, the U.S. economy has had more than 110 consecutive months of growth, making this the second longest economic expansion since the Great Depression. After a rather tepid 2017 performance, the U.S. office market gathered some steam in 2018, adding 76 million square feet of new office space and completing roughly 396 new projects in its top 40 most active markets for office completions.
“Using Yardi Matrix data we’ve examined what 2019 may have in store for the U.S. office market. According to numbers recorded up to April 9th, on a national level 662 buildings and a whopping 115 million square feet of new office space are on track for delivery this year,” according to the report. “While some reports raise concerns about how the pace of development will be affected by tariff and trade wars, growing construction costs and labor shortages, the office sector is expected to hold up better than it has in earlier downturns. This is mainly due to more restrained lending practices, a more moderate pace of development and the concentration of new office properties in markets with significant job growth.”
