95,000 sq ft mixed-use commercial

In 2018, an affiliate of Riverside Properties acquired this 95,000 square foot mixed-use commercial building and a nearby parking lot for $20,000,000 from a group of investors who owned the property for more than 15 years. Riverside served as the property manager, developer, and construction manager for this project.

The property was 100% leased at the time of purchase to a mix of tenants including artists, tech start-up companies, woodshops, music recording studios, fencing and martial arts, and the offices and chocolate production facility of the anchor tenant, Taza Chocolate. The property is in the Boynton Yards neighborhood of Somerville and a short walk from the Green Line MBTA Station in Union Square, which was completed and opened in 2021.

During its ownership of the property, Riverside made substantial improvements, improving its image and making the space more marketable to tech start-ups in the Somerville/Cambridge sub-markets. Riverside updated the building’s lobby, modernized the freight elevator, renovated all common bathrooms, and made improvements to all stairways and corridors, including the replacement of flooring and lighting. Riverside also replaced the building’s roof and initiated an HVAC improvement program to modernize the air conditioning and heating systems. Only 30% of the building was air conditioned at the time of acquisition. During Riverside’s tenure, it oversaw renovations to more than 40% of the rentable area of the building and brought more than a dozen new tenants to the building, creating a dynamic place for young and creative companies to grow.

Riverside sold 561 Windsor and its nearby parking lot in 2021 for $60,000,000 to an affiliate of its neighbor, DLJ Real Estate Partners, which was assembling land in the neighborhood for a master-planned development. That project was anticipated to include nearly 2.0 million square feet of laboratory, residential, and retail uses.