Alloy Properties Pays $365M for Boston-Area Life Science Portfolio

Image by Julia Koblitz via Unsplash

Alloy Properties, an affiliate of TPG Real Estate Partners, has acquired five life science assets in Cambridge and Waltham, Mass. Alexandria Real Estate Equities sold the portfolio for $365 million, or an average sales price of $852 per rentable square foot.

Two of the assets are located at 780 and 790 Memorial Drive in Cambridgeport in Cambridge, while three facilities are in Waltham at 225 Second Ave., 266 Second Ave. and 275 Second Ave.

The properties total about 425,000 square feet across metro Boston, which remains one of the nation’s strongest and fastest-growing life science markets.

Alloy is a national life science and innovation platform backed by TREP and made the acquisition in a joint venture with Anchor Line Partners, of Boston.

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The Cambridge portfolio, according to Alloy, represents the company’s “first lab campus entirely dedicated to earlier-stage, high growth companies with a full suite of amenities, flexible lease terms, and modular lab space” and is targeting “companies and founders in the post-incubation stage.”

The three Second Avenue buildings in the Waltham portfolio are home to several global life science companies.

In a prepared statement, Alicia Mistry Hinds, Alloy’s director of asset management, noted that this acquisition brings the company’s Boston-area footprint to 1.8 million square feet, “making Alloy one of the largest life science real estate owners in the area.”

Alloy now owns 21 life science buildings in the Boston metro, including properties in and around Cambridge and others in Lexington, Waltham and Bedford, Mass.

A strong life science market

The metro Boston life science sector has seen rapid activity on multiple fronts recently.

At the end of May, Oxford Properties sold a new 140,000-square-foot GMP facility in Marlborough, Mass., to pharma and biotech company Moderna (of COVID-19 vaccine fame) for $91 million.

In mid-May, Greystar topped out 74M, a 465,000-square-foot life science building in Somerville, Mass., the developer’s first-ever life science project. The building is part of a $1.2 billion joint venture between Greystar and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

In mid-April, an affiliate of Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., along with National Development, transferred a partial interest in a life science development at 15 Necco St. in Boston to a U.S. affiliate of Mori Trust Co. Ltd. The 345,995-rentable-square-foot Class A project is scheduled to deliver late this year. The deal was Mori Trust’s first life science transaction in the U.S.

And in March, Berkeley Investments received approval to develop a five-building, mixed-use, transit-oriented development comprising 720,000 square feet of Class A lab, R&D space and office space and 252 apartment units at 176 Lincoln in Boston. The company plans to break ground next year, with completion expected in 2028. The 5.2-acre site has been vacant for 35 years.