Outsourcing Solutions for Real Estate Services

Client: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)

In 1996, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) contracted with Transit Realty Associates, LLC for the management of its real estate assets. These assets include approximately 3,500 parcels of land, 600 leases, and 400 miles of right-of-way.

TRA’s contracted services with the MBTA include:

• Establishing and administering an effective asset management system (GIS)
• Increasing income from leases and surplus property sales
• Creating value through opportunities for transit-oriented development projects
• Providing consulting on other sources of non-fare revenue, such as telecom and advertising opportunities

In providing the MBTA with a complete outsourcing solution for its real estate services over the past nine years, TRA has helped the MBTA achieve the following:

• Generated more than $100 million in revenues from MBTA real estate, with an additional $100 million in identified projects in progress
• Tripled the MBTA’s income from real estate activities (double the MBTA’s original privatization goal)
• Implemented new collection procedures, which reduced outstanding receivables by seven figures
• Reorganized the MBTA’s retail program in transit and commuter rail stations, resulting in more vendors, improved choices for riders, and the doubling of revenues from the retail portfolio
• Identified undocumented telecommunications installations and placed them under agreement, which will generate cumulative payments of over $25 million to the MBTA over the lease term
• Developed an aggressive telecommunications marketing strategy leading to new agreements which tripled the MBTA’s telecommunications rental stream and obtained multi-million dollar infrastructure improvements for the MBTA
• Renegotiated outdoor advertising contracts, doubling base rent and receipt of percentage rent, obtained ownership of the structures and a large retroactive settlement payment
• Increased revenue from pay telephone services four-fold
• Implemented higher utility rate schedules
• Completed a parking garage feasibility study, which proposed building 3,200 parking spaces at no cost to the MBTA by leveraging $100 million in private investment
• Completed a joint development feasibility study resulting in potential projects for office, residential and entertainment uses
• Negotiated a variety of transit-oriented development transactions
• Tripled the number of property sales transactions
• Created a multi-dimensional property inventory database for tracking the MBTA’s real property assets utilizing Geographic Information System (GIS) technology