Branding the sky: Developers and tenants find value in putting their names on Worcester office buildings wbjournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wbjournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
SHORELINE In a portfolio sale that may include other pending deals, four area retail properties, all leased to Fred Meyer, have traded for about $57.2 million.
The seller was Metropolitan Life Insurance, and the buyers were LLCs associated with Benderson Development of Florida. Brokers were not announced.
The seven-story downtown Worcester office building long known for its anchor tenant, the insurer Unum, will undergo new branding and leasing now that Unum has elected to have its area employees indefinitely work remotely.
Franklin Realty Advisors, which owns and operates the Mercantile Center office and retail complex across Mercantile Street, said Wednesday it has been hired to manage, develop and oversee leasing for the building, which according to city records spans 179,000 square feet. The building will be rebranded One Mercantile after its street address.
Unum, whose name adorns the top of the building, said last July it would keep employees working remotely indefinitely, after first having switched to people working from home once the coronavirus pandemic hit. The Tennessee-based company had roughly 400 local employees at the time, and according to Franklin Realty Advisors, the insurer occupied 125,000 square feet of space.