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BY JOE CLEMENTS
BOSTON — They used to be Dionne & Gass, a plucky boutique law firm fighting above its weight as advisors to an esteemed lineup of commercial real estate owners and operators. Then five years ago
next month, the platform of Richard D. Dionne and Richard D. Gass and changed when their firm was ac- quired by Saul Ewing LLP, a prac- tice focused on the East Coast which longtime Dionne & Gass partner Sally E. Michael says has been helpful in expanding their book of business and ensuring existing clients aiming to pursue markets outside New England can get one-stop coverage.
“I think everyone has bene- fitted,” Michael says, and Saul Ewing was no doubt enthused inheriting a number of Bay State titans, among them Harold Brown’s Hamilton Co. and KS Partners, the former a client of hers for nearly a quarter-century
and the relationship with KS Partners founder Kambiz Shahbazi dating back over a decade, Michael recounts in assessing a 2015 where her services were less in demand at Hamilton Co. whereas Shahbazi’s legal matters were more frequent than most as his team completed a variety of transactions, including multiple CRE acquisitions (see story this section).
Hamilton Co. President Carl A. Valeri acknowledges Saul Ewing has been
Saul Ewing Clients Enjoy Robust Year
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used less by the Allston-based firm over the past 18 months, with acquisitions slower than normal for a firm that has shelled out $500-million plus midway through the decade. Valeri says Hamilton now is absorbing much of the product acquired, at times renovating older stock and other times pursuing ground-up construction. Because they are tapping into a $50 million KeyBank line of credit to fund the development activities, Saul Ewing has not been needed as if they would should permanent financing be sought, he ex- plains, but when that is needed, Valeri pledges that Michael will be the first lawyer engaged for the assignment. She is last on that list as well, he stresses.
“We wouldn’t use anyone else,” Valeri says while recalling Michael and he both began work- ing for Hamilton Co. at the same time 23 years ago while she was at Lane Altman & Owens LLP in the office of Brown’s longtime attorney, Luci Vincent. When that well-known CRE expert passed away, Michael was brought into the fold, Valeri outlines in offering traits responsible for her successful tenure. “Sally. is equitable, she is smart and she gets things done—and I haven’t found many attorneys who can say all that,” of- fers Valeri, adding, “We follow her wherever she goes.”
Shahbazi has expressed similar sentiment, calling Michael “a true friend and trusted advi- sor” who has followed his company’s activities across multiple cycles, the latest displaying a re- bounding nature that has given KS Partners an enhanced presence in Boston’s inner suburbs out to Interstate 495. The momentum has continued into 2016, with KS Partners paying $29 million for the Highwood Office Park in Tewksbury from Equus Capital. “Highwood was a wonderful transaction,” Michael recounts of the three-build- ing, 220,000-sf assemblage directly off I-495 which gives KS Partners a cluster of major office parks in the northern tier, having in 2014 bought Brickstone Office Park in Andover and last year another campus in Lowell, Connector Park.
“It is a very nice business relationship and a true friendship,” Michael says of Shahbazi. As to Hamilton Co., she marvels at the com- pany’s seamless switch to development mode that has a series of mixed-use and multifamily projects underway or on the drawing boards and expected to be in progress over the coming months. “They have been slower in the (acqui- sitions) part, but they have a lot of shovels in the ground, and it has been exciting to go by and see the beautiful buildings they are devel- oping,” Michael says. And when the time comes for the takeout financing, Michael will be more than prepared, even teaching a class on perma- nent loans at the MIT Center for Real Estate.
Another Saul Ewing attorney tapped into the regional CRE legal scene is James H. Shulman, his clients including Albany Road Real Estate Partners and R.J. Kelly Co., both of which turned to Shulman as they launched major acquisition
initiatives from Maine to the southeastern US for Albany Road, this year hitting $500 million in assets acquired after just four years. R.J. Kelly is parlaying a family owned construction busi- ness into a vertically integrated investment ma- chine that has been busy the past three years, kicking it off with a $50 million purchase of a first-class office building in Providence.
In 2015, R.J. Kelly spent $31 million for an- other high-end office building at 100 Quannap- owitt Parkway in Wakefield, and thus far in 2016 has acquired a Wilmington flex building at 326 Ballardvale St. and a Route 128 office park in Lexington (see story, this section). Albany Road was the winning bidder last year on a five-build- ing industrial portfolio in Massachusetts har- vested by Colony Realty Partners via Colliers International, and also acquired self-storage in Connecticut and office product in Maine.
HIGHWOOD OFFICE PARK, TEWKSBURY MA
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200 SHUMAN AVE., STOUGHTON MA
“They are all absolutely doing great and keeping very busy.
”sally e. MiChael, saul ewinG llp, on her CRE clients
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Griffin Jr. Capital Markets team at Newmark, its principals Griffin himself plus Vice Chair Edward C. Maher Jr. and Executive Managing Director Matthew E. Pullen. The buyer in both instances was homegrown Brady Sullivan Properties, with Director of Commercial Real Estate Charles N. Panasis negotiating terms on its behalf.
The bigger of the packages includes 410 and 472 Amherst St. in Nashua, the former a first-class 68,250-sf office building completed in 1983 and its companion a flex industrial structure totaling 98,500 sf that came on line in 1982. Brady Sulli- van also secured an amalgam of flex/office/ware- house at 22 Cotton Rd., that 153,700-sf asset branded the Birch Pond Business Center, which is right off Route 3 at Exit 8 minutes from downtown and the Nashua Airport. At that same exit can be found 15 Trafalgar Sq., a high-end 36,700-sf of- fice building on 2.7 acres that commands rents cresting $18 per sf. It was constructed in 1987. The Hudson entry is 5 Wentworth Dr., which to- tals 140,000 sf of industrial and office space in a building expanded by 63,000 sf in 2000.
RMR Group was Cushman & Wakefield’s client selling the assets which closed in mid-No- vember. One is also in Nashua, that being 146- 150 Main St, while a second is at 2 Wall St. in Manchester and the remainder are all in Con- cord, Capital Plaza I and II at 57 and 81 North Main St. and Eagle Square at One Eagle Sq. In a separate transaction, C&W in mid-December harvested 32 Hampshire Rd. in Salem represent- ing 55 Heritage (Salem) LLC on the sales side, that 95,000-sf flex industrial building yielding $5.42 million, giving C&W an aggregate $34.4 million of assets harvested in Q4.
“It was a very good year, especially at the end,” Farrelly recounted in an interview. “It was kind of quiet at the beginning but then every- thing really picked up and we were at right to the end.” The assets in question got plenty of interest from outside capital but they proved no match on the portfolios to the hometown in-
vestor which has been on a buying spree in the Granite State this decade. One thing that may have fueled their interest is the scarcity of CRE in Greater Manchester. “People like New Hamp- shire because you are only 40 minutes from Bos- ton but those who are chasing yield can do deals that don’t have crazy low cap rates—what you get for a three or a four (percent) in Boston, up here it’s a seven or an eight.” The Catch 22: own- ers are reluctant to part ways with their holdings,
relays Farrelly. “People are enjoying the leasing and they are very reluctant to sell,” he says. “It’s not always easy to find things to buy,”
Maybe that is also because Brady Sullivan has voraciously been scooping up all comers, famously in 2014 paying $19.7 million for 900 Elm St. to go along with 1000 Elm St. and en- sure the firm has the tallest building in New Hampshire with that 20-story structure. It has since been branded Brady Sullivan Plaza. u
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TWO WALL ST., MANCHESTER NH
410 AMHERST ST., NASHUA NH
Richard D. Gass, who also represents a mul- titude of regional CRE interests such as Equity Industrial Partners of Needham, among New England’s biggest owners of flex and industri- al real estate. In 2015, EIP conquests included 200 Shuman Ave. in Stoughton, a 158,000-sf warehouse purchased from Prologis for $3.27 million and financed with $4.2 million from Brookline Bank.
Joining Gass on that assignment was Saul Ewing attorney Joanne Robbins, according to Norfolk County Registry of Deeds information. Gass did not respond to inquiries regarding EIP or other activities for his practice in 2015, and Michael also would not discuss terms of specific transactions, although she did acknowledge the booming Boston economy and solid real estate fundamentals has made for a brisk stretch of business.
“They are all absolutely doing great and keep- ing very busy,” she says. “It has been that way for
quite awhile, and while I do think some people feel we are nearing the peak, the interest is still really strong, and I think it will continue that way for the rest of the year.” In the end, Michael says she relies on the travails of Hamilton Co. founder Brown, now in his early nineties still at the helm where he has been for over seven decades. “Har- old has been through five cycles,” she says, offer- ing that, “he knows what they look like and he knows how to treat them, and he’ll say, it’s just a cycle, everything will be fine . . . and I am sure it will be whenever things do change.” u
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