Deutsche Paying Fallon Co. $475M for Goodwin HQ Listed by HFF

BOSTON—A gleaming Seaport District office tower attractive enough to lure law firm Goodwin away from its longtime home at the corner of New England’s traditional Main and Main in the Financial District is now proving its mettle in the pending sale of 100 Northern Ave. by developer Fallon Cos. and Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers via HFF to Deutsche Bank at a price tag said to be cresting $475 million, market sources are telling therealreporter.com. If so, that would exceed $920 per sf at a minimum, with the law firm’s 380,000-sf pact and 18,000 sf of ground floor retail among the reasons observers are citing in justifying the aggressive bidding levels.

“They won a real dogfight,” one market veteran says in concurring with other sources that the international banking giant has come out on top in a competition that reportedly attracted a bevy of other well-heeled capital groups from the local, national and global scenes, the latter constituency already having a presence in the emerging Seaport thanks to a German funds’s $452 million acquisition this spring of a building developed by Skanska USA, that deal previously unveiled by therealreporter.com which Newmark negotiated on both sides.

At this juncture, official confirmation regarding Deutsche and the investor’s 100 Northern Ave. selection has been lacking, with HFF’s Capital Markets team not responding to inquiries by press deadline. The 516,000-sf tower which is part of the pioneering 21-acre Fan Pier project that Fallon Cos. used to kick off the district’s massive construction boom in full force this decade has Goodwin Procter on 11 floors ot the 17-story building whose exclusive leasing agent is CBRE/NE, agent for the landmark law firm commitment that commenced in its occupancy this summer of the glass tower overlooking Boston Harbor.

The HFF team advising the seller that is led by Senior Managing Director Coleman Benedict and Director Benjamin Sayles is quite familiar with the Fan Pier location and its sponsorship, for whom the mortgage banking firm’s debt unit had arranged construction financing for in spring 2014 of $204 million used to build 100 Northern Ave. That same year, HFF’s Capital Markets group separately orchestrated the $1.12 billion sale of the Vertex Pharmaceuticals headquarters at Fan Pier, another groundbreaking lease which brought that life sciences firm over from its roots in Cambridge to fill a pair of towers at 50 Northern Ave. and 11 Fan Pier Blvd.