Land up for grabs in Boston’s Seaport

The U.S. Army Reserve and the U.S. General Services Administration announced late Friday that it was making 13 land parcels available as part of an arrangement that would exchange the land for construction of a new U.S. Army Reserve office and training facility in Virginia. As part of the exchange, the developer who is awarded the 13 parcels — making up 8.1 acres of land — also gets a nine-story, 620,000-square-foot office building called the Barnes Building, a 14,000-square-foot maintenance garage and about 1,200 permitted parking spots and six acres of developable land. The land and related commercial property is located at 495 Summer St. in South Boston across the street from the World Trade Center and adjacent to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

The land exchange is being marketed by the real estate firm, GVA Williams, with Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based accounting firm, and Faithful+Gould, an international consultant firm. Interested developers are required to bid on the property, which is being advertised as a prime location for office, hotel and retail development or life science complex. The acquisition of the land will be paid for by the winning developer in the form of the construction services provided in Virginia.

“The U.S. Army Reserve is proud to provide this one-of-a-kind real estate opportunity. The benefit of this transaction is twofold: the state-of-the-art facility will allow the Army Reserve to better carry out its mission of training soldiers for the challenges of the 21st century, and the exchange will enhance the development of Boston’s Seaport District,” said Eric Loughner, deputy chief of ACSIM-Army Reserve, in a statement.

German firm buys Boston office tower

Broadway Partners said today it has sold a 16-story office tower in Boston's Financial District to a firm representing European institutional investors for $167 million.

The building is 200 State St., said the seller, Broadway Partners, a private real estate investment and management firm headquartered in New York. (Broadway Partners' public relations firm provided the photo that appears above this story.)

The buyer is GLL Real Estate Partners GmbH, a real estate funds management group based in Germany that was acting on behalf of European institutional investors, Broadway Partners said.

The bank for banks sits atop MBS risk

The $84 billion Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, a key source of funding for more than 450 banks and credit unions in New England, is sitting atop a potential powder keg of risky mortgage-backed securities that threatens to trigger big losses if real estate prices continue to tank.

During the first six months of this year, FHLB of Boston experienced $1.1 billion in unrealized losses in its portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, up from just $155.4 million as of Dec. 31. The continued broad-based deterioration of mortgage loan performance and housing prices could expand those losses and possibly trigger a permanent impairment of those investments.

One possible implication is that FHLB’s advances to banks will become more expensive. The FHLB of Boston already has reduced its dividend, which means less revenue for participating banks.