When Oxford Properties Group spent $242.5 million to buy 125 Summer St. in the heart of Boston’s Financial District in 2014, the Toronto-based real estate firm called the building “hiding in plain sight.”
“It actually sits on a whole city block in, as far as we’re concerned, one of the best mini-nodes in the city,” said Chad Remis, the head of Oxford’s Boston office, in an interview with the Business Journal. “From a transportation and from a location and open air and site encumbrance standpoint, it’s pretty special — and nobody knows it’s there.”
Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group acquired 125 Summer St. in 2014 for $252.5 million. The firm is teasing "something big" at the 22-story office.
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Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group acquired 125 Summer St. in 2014 for $252.5 million.… more
Oxford plans to shake up that perception with a $10 million project to upgrade the building’s ground floor and lobby and reposition the entrance of the building to the confluence of Summer and High streets. The renovation was designed by ADD Inc., now with Stantec, while Turner Construction Co. is the general contractor.
Over the weekend, Oxford teased the renovation by erecting a two-story kelly green and navy blue banner at the site of what will become the entrance to 125 Summer St. with an all-caps proclamation: “Something big is coming.”
The 22-story office tower spans 475,303 square feet and is the combination of several different historic facades, Remis said. Oxford’s goal for the lobby repositioning is to create a comfortable gathering place, rather than just a hallway for employees to get from Point A to Point B.
“We’re taking more of a hospitality approach to the lobby, in the sense that we want it to be a third space,” Remis said. “We want our tenant base to feel comfortable and to want to use it, want to interact in it, and want to have meetings in it.”
