Apple Breaks the Bank on Back Bay Retail Buy

In New York City, owner-occupied retail properties are a growing trend, as companies look to control their own spaces. In Boston, one of the biggest technology companies is making the same play.

Apple purchased the property at 815 Boylston Street in the Back Bay neighborhood for $88 million, the Boston Business Journal reported. The deal works out to more than $3,500 per square foot and represents one of the priciest commercial deals in the state in recent memory.

An affiliate of London-based Tribeca Holdings was the seller of the three-story store. Neither party immediately commented on the transaction, which didn’t require Apple to take out a loan for financing.

When Tribeca purchased the building, Apple was already a tenant. The tech giant opened its store in 2008 and at the time, it was the company’s largest store in the country. Tribeca came along four years later and purchased the property for $27.5 million.

Apple’s acquisition signals a couple things. First, it’s an acknowledgment of the strength of the Back Bay retail market. Tourists flock to the neighborhood and one of the city’s priciest commercial deals since 2000 unfolded recently on Newbury Street.

Second, the appetite for a retailer to own its own space is growing. New York in recent months has seen the likes of Prada purchase properties they already operate in a limited capacity, cutting out the middleman and becoming their own end user without having to deal with lease payments.

Apple isn’t known to own many of its stores, preferring to rent them instead, so time will tell if this is a one-off or strategic shift.

The Cupertino-based company is looking to save a lot more money than it just spent in Boston for the Back Bay property. Last month, the firm filed more than 1,400 outstanding property assessment appeals with Santa Clara County, hoping to wipe $33.6 billion off of its tax bill.

— Holden Walter-Warner