Albany Road Finds, Funds MOB; $25M+ Spent on Suburban Assets

HAVERHILL — No one could blame involved parties for taking a few extra days off this Labor Day, perhaps the entire week even, after doing yeoman’s work as summer 2025 neared the annual homage to languid leisure, the result of their last-minute efforts Albany Road Real Estate Partners buying a supremely sited medical office building serving a dual-state Merrimack Valley constituency reeled in at a price of $9.57 million for 62 Brown St.

Working jointly, Transwestern and NAI/Parsons Commercial Group advised the sellers and procured Albany Road as winning bidder while a $25.5 million Starwood Mortgage Capital note covers the 20-year-old Merrimack Medical Center uniquely set on the 122-bed campus of Holy Family Hospital, and the loan also supports separate all-cash purchases secured throughout the season, one a $9.0 million buy in nearby Chelmsford in early June and the initial acquisition finalized just days after Memorial Day involving 56 New Driftway in Scituate scooped up from Fulcrum Real Estate Partners at a consideration of $7.4 million as initially detailed by Real Reporter.

All told, Albany Road’s investment group led by founding principal Christopher J. Knisley spent $25.9 million to reel in over 180,000 square feet of “strategically located” suburban MOB cross-collateralized through the loan issued by Starwood Capital, headquartered in Charlotte NC.

Efforts to contact principals at Albany Road including Knisley and Vice President Tyler Savonen of the acquisitions team were unsuccessful as of press deadline, the holiday one potential factor, but Registry of Deeds records detail the sale and financing elements.

Earlier this year, Transwestern announced that firm had been tabbed to harvest 62 Brown St. and indicated NAI Parsons Commercial Group of Natick was also involved, one name mentioned in the marketing documents being NAI/PCG Director of Brokerage Alex Berger, who explains Managing Director Matt Quinlan and he were engaged through Transwestern which recognized their contributions in bringing occupancy up from 50 percent to near full capacity with just one slot of 3,000 sf unlet at the time of the sale. Deals from that spate of activity included such key tenants as Care Counseling Services, GSA Social Security and Orthopedics New England. Under the guidance of owners Echo Real Estate Capital and Thomas Park Investments, who bought the asset in summer 2021, the Parsons team inked 20 renewals and eight new leases leading up to the sale to Albany Road, which has kept the Berger/Quinlan team on board. “We are excited,” Berger says in praising Transwestern for its role in the successful exit of their client, with Transwestern principal Seth Gilford cited for his efforts in handling the exclusive assignment.

As to new ownership, Knisley had told Real Reporter earlier this year after the Scituate MOB purchase that his firm would continue to pursue the asset class in Massachusetts and into other markets when the opportunity presented itself; founded in 2012, Albany Road today has a national footprint covering a diverse range of asset classes gathered since its launch,among them industrial, office, retail and self-storage.

MOB “is an asset class we feel comfortable with,” Knisley told RealReporter in buying the Scituate building through Fulcrum which had held the 55,000-sf MOB on along-term basis before listing it through the Newmark PrivateCapital Group that did broker the agreement with the winning suitor at a capitalization rate in the low 7 percent range thanks to a series of leases Fulcrum inked during its tenure. In making the all-cash purchase of 56 New Driftway, AlbanyRoad had relayed its intention to secure debt at some point by combining a loan that would likely involve multiple properties of a similar ilk as occurred with the Starwood Capital loan appearing in the Essex South Registry of Deeds.

Terms of the loan regarding interest rate and length were not disclosed. The building at time of listing was 88.5 percent occupied by a lineup of 21 tenants with a weighted average lease time of 5.85 years. Transwestern had labeled it as a “value-add” opportunity though the firm also noted that its client “has spent significant capital into this project to attract quality tenants” and deems it“well-positioned” geographically sporting direct access to downtown Haverhill five minutes away, at which there are multiple public transit lines including the MBTA connecting toBoston and points north to New Hampshire and Maine via Amtrak.  Transwestern pitched 62 Brown St. at a target price of $10.8 million which if achieved would have equated to a capitalization rate of 8.18 percent based on annual net operating income of $885,797. Using that NOI metric would indicate a cap rate in the low 9 percent range for the actual exchange rate of $9.57 million.