Update: BRA Completes UUA HQ Sale; Condos Possible After $11.5M Exchange

BOSTON—Less than a year after being retained to harvest Universalist Unitarian Association’s prized headquarters clustered around the Massachusetts State House, Boston Realty Advisors has completed the landmark assignment in trading 39-41 Mount Vernon St. to a local investor and his French financier who are talking luxury condominiums after paying a hefty $11.5 million for the 23,025-sf structure, a piece of the four-building, 71,000-sf assemblage. Representing UUA and its advisor, Leggat McCall Properties, BRA in the spring had negotiated an exchange of the other three assets for $23.6 million, yielding an impressive $494 per sf for the entire package, with 39-41 Mount Vernon St. costing an even $500 per sf to secure an empty building facing a major transformation.

“It was a highly sought after asset that got a ton of interest,” BRA principal Christopher D. Sower tells therealreporter.com Wednesday in describing a litany of suitors vying for both that remaining property and the prior three separately secured this spring by Sea Dar Construction, as first unveiled by therealreporter.com. In the two deals, Sower was joined by BRA founder Jason Weissman and Andrew Herald as members of the multifamily sales division that was supported by luxury residential experts Robb Cohen and Kristy Ganong. Sea Dar bought 25 Beacon St. (28,500 sf) and 6 and 7 Mount Vernon Pl. (19,075 sf).

Demand for the fourth piece was “across the board,” Sower relays, with bidders including urban developers, users and middle-market funds and even institutional capital drawn by the international cache of Beacon Hill and rare opportunity to scoop up an infill property in one of New England’s richest neighborhoods. “A portfolio like this comes along probably once in a decade, and people responded to the chance to buy such awesome real estate right on the top of Beacon Hill,” explains Sower. “It is a very rare (listing) and people recognized that right away.”

The fourth building is in what BRA terms “an unmatched location” not only in the center of city and state government, but also near major institutions including Mass Eye & Ear, Massachusetts General Hospital Suffolk University. The new ownership is led by Daniel Rene and his group’s international backer for what is Rene’s second substantial Hub investment following an acclaimed restoration of a Financial District office building.

“As a European team, we are proud to develop this stately Beacon Hill property into extraordinary homes unique in their elegance and Bostonian charm,” Rene says in a statement provided to therealreporter.com where he adds that “we are looking forward to many more” CRE investments in the region.

“It was a real pleasure working with both parties,” Sower details in praising Rene for his ability to “step up” and outmaneuver what Weissman terms “a spirited competition” involving numerous tours. “This was a great transaction and shows the strength of the condominium market in Boston,” says Sower. Limited inventory of seven-figure condominiums is creating a firestorm of price escalations across Boston, and developers are scrambling to take advantage, with the other three UUA headquarters assets also slated for such a purpose.

“It’s an excellent result for (UUA),” Sower says of the overall process that began with news first broken by therealreporter.com last summer that the religious order whose roots were deep on Beacon Hill had committed to lease and ultimately buy 24 Farnsworth St. in the Seaport District, the globally known institution having become stuffed to the rafters in the four aging assets and being advised by LMP that the hot market could help fund a consolidation to one property. “This is the last piece they needed to make it real,” Sower says of generating the monies to fuel the Seaport initiative, in stressing, We are delighted to have met their objectives.”