BXP history

Greater Washington Development, 1979--97

In 1981 Boston Properties formed a joint venture with United States News & World Report to construct a new headquarters for the magazine, a luxury hotel, an office building, and two condominium buildings.

Mayor White approved Boston Properties' plan to build a Marriott hotel (completed in 1982) on public waterfront land even though a committee he had appointed ranked it dead last among eight proposals.

Boston Properties entered New York City in 1983, when it bought for $84 million the land and architectural design for 599 Lexington Avenue, a 47-story office building planned to rise at 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue in midtown Manhattan, from a firm that had walked away from the project.

By late 1985 Boston Properties owned and managed 53 buildings in Washington, Boston, and New York as well as California, with more than 9 million square feet of space.

Boston Properties led a partnership that in 1990 received a 20-year, $383-million lease for a new National Aeronautics and Space Administration headquarters to be built just east of One Independent Square.

In 1991 Zuckerman said he had sold his interest in the project for $4.2 million to an undisclosed buyer who would be co-owner of the site with Linde, with Boston Properties to continue as developer.

According to the Boston Globe, when the tract was sold to the Walden Woods Project in 1993 for $3.5 million, the seller was Zuckerman himself.

The proposal was subsequently scaled down and did not officially die until 1994, when negotiations between Boston Properties and the site owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, ended in acrimony.

In 1995 Boston Properties made one of its rare sales, accepting $43.5 million from the Hyatt Corp. for the Park Hyatt Hotel in Washington.

In 1996 the company earned $7.3 million on revenues of $269.9 million.

Boston Properties announced in August 1997 that it had agreed to buy 280 Park Avenue, a complex of two large office towers in midtown Manhattan between East 48th and 49th streets, from the Bankers Trust Co. for $321 million.

In 1998, it acquired Embarcadero Center for about $1.22 billion and acquired Prudential Tower and The Shops at Prudential Center for $519 million.

In 1990, the company began construction of the NASA Headquarters. It was sold to Hana Financial Group in 2002.

In June 2008, the company acquired the General Motors Building in New York City for $2.8 billion, the highest paid for an American office building.

In October 2010, the company acquired 200 Clarendon Street (formerly John Hancock Tower) for $930 million.

In 2012, the company partnered with Hines Interests Limited Partnership to develop Salesforce Tower.