Boji buys 4th Lansing building

Group will target tenants who need small office spaces
By Jeremy W. Steele
Lansing State Journal

The owner of Lansing's tallest structure has bought a fourth office building within three blocks of the state Capitol.
Boji Group, which owns the 25-story Boji Tower, is expected to announce today that it has completed a deal for a 50,000-square-foot building at 112 E. Allegan St., at Grand Avenue.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The building, which houses a Fifth Third Bank branch, is Boji's fourth building along three blocks of Allegan Street. The deal includes a nearby parking lot along Grand Avenue. That will give Boji about 100 surface parking spaces downtown.
Boji Group President Ron Boji said the company's three other downtown buildings are nearly full and the new addition gives Boji a new size of office suites to offer smaller tenants.
"Our existing buildings, the Hollister Building, Boji Tower and Capital View, do not have any smaller footprint spaces - the 3,000- to 5,000-square-foot spaces," he said. "We have had a good amount of requests for those spaces, whether they be for smaller law firms, public relations firms or lobbying firms."
And as larger firms expand in Boji's other buildings, the developer needs the spaces to accommodate its smaller tenants, he said.

Rent is expected to be in the low- to mid-teens per square foot.
The building is 50 percent occupied, but a handful of tenants already are lined up to move there and one existing tenant expects to expand, Boji said.

"When both of those are done, we should get to about a 75 percent occupancy," he said.
The deal helps solidify Boji Group's standing as one of the major private-sector owners of property in downtown. Between the four buildings, Boji will own about 450,000 square feet of office space downtown.
More important, Boji is known for having quality buildings, said Kevin Green, executive director of the Lansing Principal Shopping District, a quasi-government group that promotes downtown.

"They have an eye for design aesthetics and they do quality work," Green said. "From our perspective we're proud and thrilled that they're downtown and believe in downtown."
Contact Jeremy W. Steele at 377-1015 or jwsteele@lsj.com.