Cross_Point_(Lowell,_Massachusetts)
Cross Point (Lowell, Massachusetts)
Office complex in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States
Cross Point is an office complex in Lowell, Massachusetts. Formerly named Wang Towers, it is a local landmark, dominating the busy intersection[2][3] of Interstate 495 (the Boston outer ring road) and U.S. Route 3. It is the third-tallest building in Lowell, after Three River Place and the Kenneth R. Fox Student Union at UMass Lowell.
The complex, consisting of three interconnected cement-clad 12-storey[4][Note 1] towers and other buildings totaling over 1,200,000 square feet (110,000 m2) situated on 15 acres (6.1 ha), was built by original sole tenant Wang Laboratories as its new world headquarters.[3]
Construction began in 1980, and it was completed in stages at a cost of US$60,000,000 (about $189 million[5] in current dollars).[6][Note 2] The buildings served as a demonstration of the rise of Wang Labs and the Boston-area computer technology industry generally, and later as a sign of the rapid fall of the company and industry:[original research?] Wang Labs entered bankruptcy in 1992, and the property was sold at bankruptcy auction in 1994 for a tiny fraction of its construction cost – $525,000 (about $1.08 million[5] in current dollars) – in 1994, to Louis Pellegrine,[6] fronting for One Industrial Avenue Corp (OIAC). OIAC was a partnership conprised of principals Christopher Kelly and Luis Alvarado, along with Brian Kelly, Daniel Doherty and investor Geometry Partners.[7]
OIAC renovated the towers (with the help of tax breaks and a $2.2 million letter of credit from the City of Lowell)[8][9] and sold them in 1998 to San Francisco-based Yale Properties USA and Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, reportedly for over $100 million.[7] The towers acquired new tenants, but business was hurt by the 2000–2001 bursting of the "dot-com bubble", and it was described as being, by 2005, a "ghost town"[10] with an occupancy rate of about 50%.[10]
Yale Properties bought out Blackstone's share in 2005; in the same year San Diego-based Divco West Properties bought an interest in the property.[11] By 2007 the occupancy rate was back up to about 90%, with major tenants such as Motorola moving in.[10] Yale actively shopped the property, but a 2007 deal to sell it for about $180 million to a consortium led by Davis Marcus Partners[12] fell through. The real estate crash beginning in 2007 put severe strain on the property's finances,[13] but Yale and Divco West (along with Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board) retained ownership. In 2012 the towers were about 70% filled[14] and Colliers International was hired to boost occupancy.[14]
The towers were sold to CP Associates LLC for $100 million in 2014.[15][3]
One of the largest office lease relocation transactions in Greater Boston happened when Kronos Incorporated signed a 500,000 square-foot global headquarters office lease at Cross Point in 2016.[16][17] This move makes it one of the largest employers in Lowell and the largest tenant at Cross Point with 1,500 employees on a total of 16 floors.[18][19] CrossPoint’s ownership team and Kronos plan to spend more than $40 million on the design and build of a completely modernized facility.[19]