Flatley looks to sell good bit of his empire
Stories don't get much better than the Tom Flatley story.
Born in Ireland, Flatley came to America in 1950, at the age of 18, with $32 in his pocket. He went to work at a German delicatessen in the Bronx, did a hitch in the service and then went to night school on the G I Bill, earning plumber's, electrician's, and builder's licenses. He bought his first house in 1957 and built six apartments on 5 extra acres.
Over 50 years Flatley built a real estate fortune worth $1.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine. But he isn't one to talk about his accomplishments. He is, as Forbes once called him, "the anti-Trump," a man who hates the spotlight. He is at once a tough businessman -- "If flies land on him, he'll get a good rent," says one long-time admirer -- and one of Boston's most generous benefactors. Even then, he doesn't believe much in hand outs.
"He is not going to give you a fish; he is going to teach you how to fish," says John Fish, president of Suffolk Construction Co. "He is a living legend."
But now, at 75, Flatley is selling off a significant piece of his real estate empire. Flatley says he is near a deal to sell his entire portfolio of shopping centers in suburban Boston, Cape Cod, and southern New Hampshire. Together the 10 properties are expected to fetch about $500 million. Flatley is also shopping his Braintree Hill Office Park, which consists of four office buildings totaling nearly 500,000 square feet of space on a 24-acre campus. Asking price: about $120 million. More sales are expected to follow.
"There is nothing consummated yet on this shopping center deal," Flatley told me. "We have a large commercial area, and we are probably liquidating a little of that. No big deal. No agreement has been signed, and until an agreement is signed, anything can happen."
Why sell now?
"The market is pretty good," Flatley says. "There are times when you turn 75 that you do things that you might not do when you are 45."
It is a good time to sell. Valuations for commercial real estate are near an all-time high, driven by demand from real estate investment trusts, pension funds, and private equity buyers that are willing to pay up for hard assets.
This isn't the first time the Braintree-based Flatley Co. has been a big seller. In 1997, Flatley sold 15 hotels to Starwood Lodging Trust for $470 million. Two years later he sold his six Massachusetts nursing homes. And five years ago Flatley sold his entire portfolio of 4,300 apartments in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire for $500 million in the largest such deal of its kind in New England.
"In this business, it's very difficult to stand still. You either expand or shrink, and we're shrinking," Flatley said at the time.
In Massachusetts, the largest of Flatley's shopping centers is Dedham Mall, which is about 750,000 square feet. His other Massachusetts properties are in Braintree, Canton, Falmouth, Hyannis, Medfield, and an unfinished site in Southborough.
His New Hampshire shopping centers are located in Belmont, Nashua, Portsmouth, and Rochester.
Flatley has about 4.5 million square feet of office space and says he could sell as much as 1 million feet of that. Cushman & Wakefield is the broker for both the shopping centers and the Braintree Hill Office Park.
Flatley's other office properties include Crown Colony Park in Quincy, the Schrafft Center in Charlestown, and the Forbes Business Center in Braintree.
Flatley says he hopes to use the proceeds of the sales to build his charitable foundation, which now stands at about $200 million.
Neighborhood news. The FBI in Boston, now located in Government Center, is in the market for new offices. That kind of lease, for about 270,000 square feet, can be used to build a new building. And the mayor, Tom Menino, has a site in mind: Fan Pier, being developed by his friend Joe Fallon.
Menino says he made the suggestion several weeks ago in a meeting with the FBI and the US General Services Administration. "The federal courthouse and the FBI, right next to each other," the mayor said. "What better location could you have?"
Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association, would beg to differ: "I would not think the FBI would be the best way to attract the public to the water's edge. We were thinking about parks and restaurants and cafes and shops."
A spokeswoman for the GSA, which handles federal office leasing, said bids for proposals are due March 30.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902. 
