Bain Capital Sells Boston-Area Life Science Asset for $128M

1030 Massachusetts Ave. Image courtesy of Bain Capital Real Estate

Bain Capital Real Estate has sold a 77,805-square-foot life science property in Cambridge, Mass., for $128 million. The buyer of the fully leased, four-story building at 1030 Massachusetts Ave. was an undisclosed publicly traded REIT.

The property had been converted into a Class A, LEED Gold–certified laboratory facility in 2013 and reportedly is the closest privately owned lab/office building to Harvard University and also within walking distance of MIT. Its tenants include Astellas, Mitobridge and Obsidian Therapeutics.

Eastdil Secured was the exclusive advisor to Bain Capital Real Estate. Bain had acquired 1030 Massachusetts Ave. in 2016 with its operating partner on this asset, Longfellow Real Estate Partners, which had completed the 2013 conversion.

“This transaction is a prime example of our thematic approach to investing. In this case, we identified an attractive opportunity to invest in a property that aligns with key secular trends driving the life science real estate market,” Elizabeth Carrillo Thomas, a managing director with Bain, said in a prepared statement.

Cutting-edge science, amazing rents

Average rents for life science lab space in greater Boston are at a historical high—$53 per square foot—and rising, according to a February report from Cushman & Wakefield. Asking rents in Cambridge are even higher, averaging $88 per square foot.

The flip side of such rents is an overall vacancy of 3.6 percent across the metro area’s inventory of an impressive 18.4 million square feet. Vacancy specifically in Cambridge is a razor-thin 0.7 percent on an inventory of 10.2 million square feet, the report noted.

In January, Bulfinch Cos. announced that it will be developing a 270,000-square-foot Class A office/lab/R&D project at Cambridge Discovery Park in Cambridge. The six-story development will encompass two separate bases, with 42,000-square-foot floor plates connected on floors three through six over Discovery Way Drive.