Oxford Properties Group has acquired One Marina Park Drive — an 18-storey, approximately 500,000-square-foot class-A office building in Boston’s Seaport District — from Clarion Partners for $599.6 million (US$435 million).

While a long-term owner of office assets, Oxford spent the past decade diversifying its holdings across major asset classes and recycled approximately US$14 billion out of the office sector globally during the low-rate environment from 2018 to 2022. That approach has enabled the firm to rotate capital back into office as market conditions create compelling investment opportunities.

“We’re seeing leasing activity in our buildings pick up and we're getting more calls from large occupiers — from tech tenants to financial institutions to law firms and engineering businesses — so, when you start seeing those real time data points move, it's really easy to get that conviction that this is going to be the beginning of a market recovery for operating fundamentals,” Ankit Bhatt, Oxford’s head of United States investments, told RENX. 

This is Oxford's first acquisition of a core office asset in the U.S. in nearly a decade and builds on the firm's recent office investment activity, having deployed approximately US$2 billion into the sector globally since the start of 2025.

The time is right for office acquisitions

Bhatt said the capital markets dislocation in the U.S. office market that’s occurred in recent years, since interest rates rose, is now starting to create meaningful, attractive entry points to acquire high-quality assets at material discounts to replacement cost. 

Rents and occupier demand for quality space have grown since people started returning to offices in larger numbers and for more days a week.

“That — coupled with a structurally low supply of class-A office, as development has been very muted over the last many years — is creating pretty compelling capital markets opportunities to go and invest in class-A buildings,” said Bhatt, who noted that the current office construction pipeline is less than 0.5 per cent of the total inventory and whatever is being built is being pre-leased at 70 per cent and above.  

“So, we see near-term opportunities to deploy in well-located class-A office buildings with balanced return profiles," he said.

One Marina Park Drive

The LEED Gold-certified One Marina Park Drive is within the Fan Pier waterfront mixed-use development and is 99 per cent leased to a diverse roster of venture capital, legal and financial services firms. It has a weighted average lease term of six years.

“It offers an ability to acquire a high-quality core asset with core-plus returns, supported by a durable income,” said Bhatt. 

Oxford will refresh the 16-year-old building’s lobby. There’s a high-end restaurant at ground level and there are plans to add more retail to improve the tenant experience.

Oxford in Boston

One Marina Park Drive establishes Oxford's presence in the Seaport District, a key office sub-market that has a low vacancy rate and continues to see strong demand for high-quality space. The building offers unobstructed views of Boston Harbour and is close to other office buildings and high-end retail.

The acquisition will bring Oxford’s class-A office footprint in Boston, which also includes properties in Back Bay and downtown, to more than 3.2 million square feet.

Oxford has leasing, operations and construction teams in Boston and Bhatt said One Marina Park Drive will complement its existing portfolio in the city.

Oxford leased more than one million square feet of office and life science space in Boston last year to companies including Klaviyo, Datadog, Wayfair, DraftKings and Eli Lilly.

Oxford’s office acquisition pipeline

Oxford is a global real estate investor, developer and manager that was established in 1960 and is owned by OMERS, the defined benefit pension plan for Ontario’s municipal employees. Oxford and its portfolio companies manage more than $86 billion of assets across four continents on behalf of their investment partners. 

Oxford’s owned portfolio encompasses logistics, office, retail, living, life science, credit and hotels in global gateway cities and high-growth hubs. It invests in properties, portfolios, development sites, debt, securities and real estate businesses. 

Bhatt said Oxford’s future North American office acquisitions will be focused on Toronto, Vancouver, New York City, Boston and San Francisco and will tap into the flight to quality that exists in those markets. 

"Given that we have boots on the ground, relationships and the ability to create value, we’re seeing the green shoots earlier than most of the capital out there,” said Bhatt. “That’s allowing us to move at a quicker pace with more conviction in the office deployment strategy going forward."

Oxford’s office development

Together with its portfolio companies, Oxford is one of the world’s most active developers with more than 20 projects underway globally across all major asset classes.

“We think, in certain cities, you’ll start to see development kick in once the rent growth stories are there,” said Bhatt of the office market. “A lot of development today is being predicated on pre-leasing large headquarters space and large tenancy programs, and we've done that.”

Bhatt cited Oxford’s 72-storey, 1.4 million-square-foot 70 Hudson Yards development in New York City, which broke ground in June 2025, as an example. Deloitte signed a lease for more than 800,000 square feet of space there last year, representing the largest tenant relocation in the city since 2020.