A 32-story office tower in downtown Boston sold at a foreclosure auction for roughly a third of what its owner paid for it seven years ago, in a sale that underscores how far the city's older office stock has fallen since the pandemic reshaped demand for commercial space.
Rockpoint Group bought 100 Summer Street, a 1.1 million square foot tower near South Station, for $806 million in 2019, financed in part by a $470 million mortgage from Wells Fargo. That purchase closed just months before Covid-19 upended office demand nationwide. Wells Fargo moved to foreclose on the property this year, and at an auction held October 20, the sole bid came from Rockpoint itself, which won its own building back for $260 million, a discount of roughly 68 percent, or about $546 million, from what it paid in 2019.
Even that price looks generous next to the city's own math. Boston's tax assessors currently value 100 Summer Street at $425 million, well above the winning auction bid, a gap that illustrates how far private market pricing for older office towers has drifted from official assessments still catching up to the downturn.