955 Massachusetts Ave. — Office Tower Planned for Apartments
A Seattle real estate firm has paid $25 million for a mostly vacant office building between Central and Harvard squares, and now plans to turn the eight-story tower into 125 apartments — marking Cambridge’s first significant office-to-residential conversion. Tourbineau Real Estate Partners closed on the 86,000-square-foot building at 955 Massachusetts Ave. this month, picking it up for a fraction of what the previous owner paid just six years earlier.
That previous owner, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., bought the building in 2020 for $101 million, near the height of the region’s commercial real estate market, according to Bisnow. Tourbineau’s $25 million purchase price represents a roughly 75% drop in value, underscoring just how far Cambridge office values have fallen. The building was only 20% leased at the time of the sale, with the remaining commercial tenants holding short-term leases set to expire soon, per the same outlet’s reporting…