Boston's Motor Mart Garage, a century-old Art Deco structure once billed as the world's largest parking garage, has changed hands for $89 million — a steep drop from the $162.5 million it fetched just a decade ago. Related Beal, partnering with Freeport Equity, is the new owner of the 1,037-stall garage and its ground-floor retail at the spot where Bay Village meets Back Bay.
A Steep Discount, By Any Measure
According to The Boston Globe, a source with knowledge of the deal pegged the discount from the garage's prior sale price at 94.5 percent, even as the newspaper's own headline described the sale as a 95 percent markdown — a discrepancy the Globe's reporting leaves unresolved. Either way, the gap between $89 million and the $162.5 million that CIM Group paid for the property in 2016 is enormous, and as of midday Wednesday, the sale had not yet been recorded in Suffolk County property records, the Globe reported.
CIM Group, based in Los Angeles, had owned the garage since 2016, when it bought the property from Park Square Realty, according to Bisnow. The firm put Motor Mart Garage on the market in early 2026, per the Globe's reporting. Related Beal and Freeport Equity are the buyers, acquiring the property according to a source with deal knowledge.
The Tower That Never Rose
The garage's backstory helps explain why it changed hands at such a reduced price. Boston officials approved a 20-story condominium tower within the Motor Mart site in October 2019, a project designed to rise 310 feet and include 231 condos, a ninth-floor roof deck, and possibly a grocery store, per the seed facts tied to the Globe's reporting. That project never got off the ground.
CIM Group had estimated the tower's construction cost at $525 million back in October 2019. A Globe analysis of federal construction pricing data found that building the tower today would cost at least $775 million — a staggering jump that helps explain why the approved permits never turned into a finished building. Boston Globe reporting from January 2026 noted that the garage's owner was putting the property, and likely its permits, up for sale after the tower stalled, and that construction costs for the project had already climbed to at least $100 million above the original $525 million estimate, according to BGI CEO John Hynes.
A separate planning document from the Boston Planning & Development Agency describes the approved mixed-use project somewhat differently, listing 231 homeownership residential units, 672 parking spaces, ground-floor retail or restaurant space, 46,000 square feet of commercial space, and 42 off-site IDP units.
What Comes Next for the Property
For now, Related Beal says it intends to keep the garage and its ground-floor retail running as-is. That retail includes Legal Sea Foods, Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, and Maggiano's Little Italy, according to the same Bisnow report on the 2016 sale. The garage itself spans 1.2 acres along a full city block and was fully restored in 1999, according to connectcre.com.
Related Beal president Kimberly Sherman Stamler said the site holds great possibility for future residential and commercial development, per the same connectcre.com report, though she did not share further specifics about the firm's plans for the property. The company says it intends to continue operating the garage and retail while exploring future residential and mixed-use development with city officials and neighborhood stakeholders, the outlet reports. A CIM Group representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, per the Globe.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Boston
Motor Mart's sale lands amid what Bisnow has called a wave of Boston parking garage sales. Dock Square Parking Associates sold its Dock Square Garage near the Rose Kennedy Greenway — 698 parking spaces plus 16,000 square feet of retail leased to Hard Rock Café — to Brooklyn-based Fortis Property Group for $170 million, according to Bisnow's reporting. CIM Group itself has been active on both sides of these deals, having closed a $114.2 million purchase of a four-level garage at 321 Harrison Avenue and an adjacent office building at 1000 Washington Street, and having separately acquired 95 Berkeley Street in the South End from Community Builders for $43 million, per Bisnow.
