February 10, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
BOSTON – It’s no secret that space in booming Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass. is at a premium. However, real estate development firm The Davis Cos. broke ground this week on a 223,000 square-foot laboratory facility in nearby West Cambridge.
This development will certainly be welcome news, as there is approximately 2 percent of space in the Cambridge market is available for lease, the Boston Business Journal reported this morning. The Davis Cos. space, called the Alewife Research Center, will be located near campus formerly occupied by Pfizer . The Alewife facility plans to offer flexible lab and R&D space, an employee lounge, conference meeting area, a fitness center and a bike room with secure storage.
Brian Fallon, president of The Davis Cos. Development Group, said the plan is to have the facility ready for occupation by 2018. He said the building will allow more life science companies to open shop in the area and “contribute to Cambridge’s impressive reputation as a prime center for research and discovery.”
“The Cambridge market is one of the healthiest and tightest R&D/lab submarkets in the world, with nearly no current or near-term supply to meet the growing demand,” Fallon said in a statement to the Journal.
Cambridge’s Kendall Square area, which makes up approximately one square mile, is packed with biotech representatives. Kendall Square properties lease is for about $70 per square foot, but the proximity to the research and development talent in the area is a bonus that must be factored into the bottom line. Companies big and small are seeking space in the area to take advantage of what has become the hub of the biotech and pharmaceutical industry on the east coast. One of the reasons for the greater Boston area becoming a key player is the plethora of research universities in the area. Boston also has one of the highest educated workforces in the nation. Not only are smaller companies calling the Boston area home, but many larger and established pharmaceutical companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline , Takeda Pharmaceuticals , Sanofi , Biogen Idec, Inc. and Novartis AG have presences in the city. The close proximity of so many pharmaceutical and university laboratories provides researchers and scientists easy access to clinical studies and building partnerships between companies.
Because of the high price of Kendall Square real estate, some life science real estate developers are looking outside the Cambridge area for space for pharma companies. King Street Properties, which bills itself as the operator of the largest “privately-held portfolio of science-based real estate concentrated within the core science submarkets of Boston,” believes more and more companies will look at properties elsewhere, including nearby Lexington, Mass.
