Back Bay’s office market just got a little louder. After installing a tenant-only amenity center last year, the owner of 116 Huntington Avenue has landed roughly 50,000 square feet of new leases, one of the more positive leasing results downtown this spring. The activity suggests that hospitality-style perks, from fully outfitted meeting rooms to on-site fitness spaces, can still sway companies that are trying to figure out where to seat hybrid teams. The fresh deals add momentum to a building Columbia Property Trust has been steadily repositioning in recent years.
According to Boston Business Journal, the landlord has signed about 50,000 square feet of new leases since adding the tenant-amenity center in 2025. The report notes that the commitments are a mix of new leases, expansions and subleases that have filled newly finished prebuilt suites and smaller footprints across multiple floors.
Clubhouse And The Lease Lift
Columbia rolled out "The Clubhouse" in 2025, a roughly 6,400-square-foot tenant amenity that includes a fitness facility, flexible meeting and conference rooms, a lounge kitchen and a Full Swing golf simulator, as detailed by CityBiz. The owner also completed a set of prebuilt suites meant to shorten move-in timelines for small and mid-sized tenants that do not want to spend months building out space.
When the Clubhouse debuted, Columbia announced deals that totaled about 43,000 square feet, including new offices for Ataccama, Falcon Investment Advisors and HawkPartners and an expansion by BlueWave Solar, per NEREJ. Brokers from JLL, Newmark and Cresa handled many of those transactions. Those earlier signings appear to have been supplemented by additional commitments since late 2025, bringing the recent total to roughly 50,000 square feet.
Why Owners Keep Spending On Perks
National data helps explain why landlords keep pouring money into amenities. Owners are doubling down on experience-led offerings as structured hybrid policies and weekday attendance rise, according to JLL’s 2026 Global Occupancy Planning Benchmark. JLL found occupancy and mid-week presence increasing as more organizations set firm in-office days, trends that building owners aim to capture with gyms, lounges and flexible collaboration spaces. In a tight, competitive submarket like Back Bay, those conveniences can be the difference between a room that sits empty and one that actually lands a tenant.
For tenants and brokers in Back Bay, 116 Huntington’s mix of location, newly completed prebuilt suites and an on-site clubhouse offers a clear example of how older buildings can still compete in today’s office market. Whether that momentum continues will hinge on whether owners keep balancing high-quality amenities with flexible, deal-ready spaces that match how firms are running hybrid work.
