WS Development Lands 580 KSF Tenant at Boston Seaport Project

400 Summer Street. Rendering courtesy of WS Development

Foundation Medicine has leased 580,000 square feet of laboratory and office space at WS Development’s upcoming 400 Summer Street tower in Boston’s Seaport District. The building, which is part of the 23-acre project dubbed Boston Seaport, is slated to break ground this year and be occupied by 2023. According to WS Development, this is the largest life sciences lease in the city since 2011, with Foundation Medicine set to occupy the whole lab and office section of the building.

Located at 400 Summer St., in one of the metro’s fastest-growing areas over the past decade, the 16-story tower is also slated to include 30,000 square feet of retail. Designed by Morris Adjmi Architects and the Boston office of Stantec, the project also includes plans for a public stair connecting Summer and Congress streets. The public space is designed by James Corner Field Operations of New York High Line fame and will provide direct pedestrian and bicycle access to Boston Harbor.  

Overall, WS Development and PSP Investments’ Boston Seaport project is slated to add a total of 7.6 million square feet of residential, office, laboratory, hotel, retail and open space. Amazon, which signed on for 430,000 square feet at a nearby upcoming building last year, is just one of the area’s many recent tenants. According to Yardi Matrix data, nearly 4 million square feet of office space and more than 2,000 rental units came online in the Seaport District since the beginning of 2012, with an additional 1.3 million square feet of office space and 1,475 apartments under construction as of early August.