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Photo courtesy of The Davis Cos.
Medford’s Wellington Circle is a case study of reinventing itself for highest and best uses of commercial real estate.
Factories, strip malls and a drive-in theater gave way in recent decades to office parks, residential mid-rises and a hotel catering to business travelers. In 2021, the leading demand driver is research space for life science companies.
Developers and city officials are responding, with a major landlord building out spec lab suites in a 1989 office building, another developer proposing a speculative life science tower and city officials reviewing zoning for taller building heights.
The Davis Cos. of Boston is building out the first spec lab suite on the fourth floor of its One Cabot office building for tenant occupancy in early 2022. Approximately 300,000 square feet could become available in the coming years as office leases expire or tenants agree to early terminations, said Duncan Gilkey, The Davis Cos.’ director of leasing.
“[Life science] clients have called us and said they have a requirement for 20,000 square feet, and there’s just nothing available,” said Gilkey, who has been conducting tours with prospective tenants.
Medford’s emergence as a life science option follows success stories in Boston suburbs including Watertown, Waltham and Needham, where lab space has invigorated leasing activity in office parks and prompted redevelopment of industrial and retail properties. Alexandria Real Estate Equities acquired the Watertown Mall for $130 million in April and is planning a life science “megacampus” expanding its nearby Arsenal on the Charles complex.
One Cabot, a former Bank of America data center developed in the late 1980s, is unusually well-suited for a life science conversion with its robust electrical system and floor load capacity and over 14-foot clear heights on the top floor. The Davis Cos. is paying for the lab infrastructure, with smaller tenant allowances as a trade-off for tenants’ ability to occupy the space sooner.
Boston-based developer RISE Together is proposing an 8-story lab tower at 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway as Medford officials consider taller building heights in a commercial district near Wellington Circle. Image courtesy of CUBE3 Architects
Rise in Heights for Lab Towers?
Boston-based developer RISE Together is proposing redevelopment of the Bertucci’s restaurant property at 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway for an 8-story lab tower, which will require height variances from the city Zoning Board of Appeals. The maximum height in the commercial-industrial zoning district is two stories.
Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn is expected to ask the city council to rezone the area, currently occupied by industrial and retail properties, for taller building heights necessary for lab uses.
“With the pandemic, life science is really hot, they have the money right now and they need to expand right away,” said Alicia Hunt, Medford’s director of planning, development and sustainability.
Elizabeth Berthelette, research director for brokerage Newmark in Boston, said the Wellington Circle area shows potential similar to that of the recent lab boom in Somerville’s Assembly Square, where developers including BioMed Realty are planning millions of square feet of lab projects.
“It’s untested, and hasn’t had any commercial lab development in the past. But looking at places like Somerville and the Seaport District, there wasn’t a lot of clustering of life science space [prior to the biotech boom] and that’s all changing,” Berthelette said.
Newmark was tracking more than 6 million square feet of lab requirements in Greater Boston at the end of the second quarter.
John Preotle, master developer of the 30-acre River’s Edge property across from the Wellington MBTA station, is considering life science use for the final approved parcel.
“The question is: We need to build spec and need to have some critical mass, so we’re kind of wrestling with that,” Preotle said. “When a company is funded, they want the space right away and if you say, ‘We’ve got the greatest building in the world and you can get it in 20 months,’ they’ll say, ‘Go away.’”
Steve Adams
Air Rights Play Possible
Another long-term growth opportunity – both for developers and the city – involves a little-known air rights opportunity at the MBTA’s Wellington station.
In the 1970s, the state legislature awarded air rights to the city of Medford for development above the maintenance facility and parking lot. Plans never progressed beyond the early stages, although private developers built office buildings, apartment and condo towers and the AC by Marriott hotel at the nearby Station Landing complex. There are no immediate plans to offer air rights development, said Viktor Schrader, economic development director for the city of Medford.
Jay Doherty, CEO of original Station Landing developer Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, said air rights at Wellington remain challenging, even as developers Samuels & Assoc., Meredith Management and IQHQ move forward with large-scale projects over the Massachusetts Turnpike in the Fenway.
“Can you do it over Hudson Yards in New York or South Station? Yes,” Doherty said. “Can you build it over a rail maintenance yard in Medford? It might be doable, but it’s very challenging.”
