The Beal Cos. has yet to find a tenant for a 130,000-square-foot office property in Wakefield that the Boston-based firm has been marketing since last year.

In a real estate sense, the InWood Office Park is all dressed up with no place to go. After securing the 57-acre parcel on the Reading/Woburn line more than two years ago, developer Edward W. Callan wasted little time preparing the park for building construction, installing roads and utilities and throwing up a huge banner along the abutting Interstate 93 to alert potential tenants to the project.

Little progress has occurred since that burst of activity, however, with none of the five office buildings already permitted for the site having found a taker. Now, as the suburban office market struggles to cope with millions of square feet of sublease space that has appeared during the past six months, it seems even less likely that the property will land any deals of consequence in the foreseeable future.

“He [Callan] really missed the market,” said one suburban broker familiar with the property. “I’d say he’s going to be holding that land for awhile.”

Calls to Callan were not returned by press deadline, but most observers agree that the suburban market will have to absorb a substantial amount of space before office projects on the drawing board will see the light of day. Callan certainly is not alone in that regard, with several land parcels in the communities north of Boston that were full of promise during last year’s boom market now expected to sit idle until economic conditions stabilize.

Just around the corner from Inwood, for example, Gale & Wentworth recently quashed its plans to acquire the former Addison Wesley office park overlooking Route 128 in Reading, a complex that can support an additional 600,000 square feet of new development. One exit north along that highway in Wakefield, the Beal Cos. has yet to find a tenant for a 130,000-square-foot office property that the Boston-based company has been marketing since last year. Meanwhile, the Gutierrez Cos. has had little luck moving forward on a planned redevelopment of the Casa di Fior property across I-93 from the InWood park.

Even projects that are under way are struggling to generate interest, as exemplified by a lack of signed leases for the 160,000-square-foot property being built at the Edgewater Office Park in Wakefield. Traffic to 601 Edgewater Drive has for the most part been “tire kickers,” said Donald Oldmixon, vice president of Hobbs Brook Management, developers of the building.

‘Business Cycles’
Although the building had begun to see some momentum prior to the World Trade Center disaster, Oldmixon said it is difficult to say whether that turmoil has contributed to the continuing market malaise. Oldmixon, who stressed there are several leases out awaiting signatures, said prospective tenants are taking their time making decisions.

“A lot of people are just going to wait,” he said. “They are playing it very cautious right now.”

Broker Ernest Wronka said it appeared to him that business was beginning to rebound in mid-August, but the flurry of space suitors who called him at that point never returned following Labor Day. “Nobody knows what is happening,” said Wronka, who also said it is too early to determine what impact the World Trade Center incident will have on office space demand in the coming months. Perhaps more troublesome than the psychological effects of that tragedy is the sublease space in circulation, Wronka said, noting that tenants who are peddling space are pricing it aggressively.

Indeed, some tenants are even throwing in furniture and fixtures in order to get excess space out of their hands, said Cushman & Wakefield broker Mark Riordan. But rather than sit on the sidelines waiting for the economy to sort itself out, companies with expansion needs should be pursuing deals, Riordan maintains.

“If you are a company out in the marketplace, you should be trying to take advantage of the situation,” he said. “There are opportunities for growing tenants everywhere.”

But while few companies appear to be heeding that advice, Riordan said he believes conditions are not as bleak as they might appear. “It’s a very healthy market,” he insisted, given that the amount of new construction in the pipeline is relatively small, especially when compared to the glut of office space that exacerbated the recession of 1990. And while many industry professionals say that the most recent crash was unprecedented in terms of how quickly it hit, Riordan said no one should be surprised that it happened.

“This is nothing new,” he said. “Business cycles and technology cycles occur all the time.”

As for InWood, most of those spoken with agreed that Callan faces an uphill battle in getting an anchor tenant to kick off the park, particularly given the circuitous route it requires for one to access the property. Despite that drawback, however, and the supply/demand shortcomings of the current climate, others said that InWood’s charismatic developer should not be counted out completely, given his success in turning other challenging projects around.

“He’s a resilient guy, and I think he’ll do well in the end,” said Oldmixon, a sentiment echoed by Wronka.

The Beal Cos. is also pushing ahead despite the difficult climate, with the company having received approvals for its project two weeks ago from the town of Wakefield. Principal Robert Beal said the company is even in discussions with prospective tenants, adding that he is encouraged by the momentum.

“Yes, the market is all over the place, but we continue to focus and move forward,” he said.