Page 33 - BusinessWest January 22, 2024

have to look outside his windows. Instead, he can get in the elevator outside his suite of offices and ride in either direction.
Going down a few floors, he can point out the new offices of the Depart- ment of Children and Families (DCF), which now occupies the seventh and eighth floors, which had long been vacant. Going down to the sixth
floor, he can show off the new digs
of the Committee for Public Counsel Services.
And by pushing the button for
the lobby, Plotkin can show off many intriguing new developments, includ- ing Keezer’s Classic Clothing, the old- est second-hand fashion store in the country. The store, which opened in late November, is one of several new women- and Latino-owned incuba-
tor businesses now located in former bank offices transformed into what’s known as 1350 Market, a program oversen by the Latino Economic Development Corp. He also pointed
to what had been a Santander Bank branch at the front of the property fac- ing Main Street, space now being con- sidered for a new restaurant. There’s even a new gym on the ninth floor.
Plotkin pushed all those buttons during a recent tour of 1350 Main, a building that has had several vacant or mostly vacant floors in recent years but is rapidly filling in those spaces,
“There’s new energy coming into the city. I think we’re really turning a corner; I think we’re at a tipping point.”
with the promise of more. Indeed, he said a party has expressed strong interest in the top two floors of the property, once the corporate head- quarters for Bank of Boston.
These developments obviously bode well for this office tower, he noted, adding that he and his busi- ness partners recently acquired the first five floors from its previous own- ers and now own the entire property.
But they also bode well for the downtown area, he said, noting that the new tenants mentioned earlier bring a combined 400 or so workers to the central business district on a daily basis, providing a boost for res- taurants and other businesses.
They also help what has been a somewhat sluggish office market in the downtown, Plotkin explained, noting that these new leases take space off the market, creating better demand for existing vacant space and potentially higher lease rates, even as
questions linger concerning the long- range impacts of remote work and hybrid schedules on the overall office market.
“To have that kind of absorption
in the downtown office market helps everyone in the downtown,” he said. “It’s all about supply and demand; there’s been a lot of vacancy in the downtown, and when there’s vacancy, we have to be very cost-effective and competitive in our pricing; when there’s that much space in the market, there’s downward pressure on lease rates.”
For this issue and its focus on com- mercial real estate, we talked at length with Plotkin, who played multiple roles on this day, from tour guide to analyst,
Wenting
Jia, left, has partnered with Dick Robasson, owner of
two Keezer’s locations in Cambridge,
to bring the concept to Springfield.
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