BioMed Hands Boston Lab, Office Property To Lender
The lenders on a two-building lab and office complex in Boston's South End have taken over ownership from life sciences giant BioMed Realty.
The lenders, a partnership of KKR Real Estate Finance Trust and AllianceBernstein, took over the adjacent properties at 1000 Washington St. and 321 Harrison Ave. last month, deed records show.
KKR said in its second-quarter earnings supplemental this week that it took ownership of a Boston life sciences asset, but it didn't provide further details, and a spokesperson declined to comment. BioMed Realty and AllianceBernstein didn't respond to requests for comment.
BioMed Realty, a life sciences real estate company owned by Blackstone, secured a $322M floating-rate loan from the partnership when it acquired the property in April 2021 from CIM Group.
The buildings were both office towers at the time, but BioMed bought them with the intention of converting them to labs, as Boston was experiencing a pandemic-era boom in life sciences demand.
BioMed received approval in July 2021 from the Boston Planning Department to convert 321 Harrison to labs and later completed that conversion for at least part of the building.
In December 2021, Monte Rosa Therapeutics signed a 10-year, 63K SF lease at the property. The following year, BioMed landed five more tenants: PepGen, Pyxis Onvology, Nido Biosciences, Magnet Biomedicine and HilleVax.
1000 Washington St. has remained an office building, despite BioMed securing approval in 2023 to convert it. In 2024, BioMed President Bill Kane told Banker & Tradesman that the company was "waiting for tenants to run their course" at the property.
The building is home to several state agencies, including the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services and the Board of Registration of Social Workers.
The properties are connected by a central lobby and footbridge. Amenities at the building include a fitness center, an outdoor patio, an amenity lounge, a conference center and a kitchenette.
On June 17, Tishman Speyer announced that it was selected as the new property manager of the two-building campus. Its release and reports from multiple outlets at the time didn't mention that the property's ownership had changed.
But deed records show that BioMed had relinquished ownership of the asset on June 3 to the entity that had provided the 2021 loan. The lender then brought on Tishman to manage the property.
BioMed still has a large portfolio of Boston and Cambridge buildings spanning more than 5M SF. Other buildings include the 599K SF 585 Kendall St., home to Takeda's global headquarters, and the 282K SF building at 650 E. Kendall St. in East Cambridge
The company owns more than 17M SF across the U.S. and UK. Its Boston portfolio accounts for nearly one-third of its overall portfolio. The company has more than 2M SF in development in the pipeline.
The company also converted 601 Congress St., the former John Hancock Life Insurance Cos. building, in the Seaport into 492K SF of lab space. The property, known as the Seaport Sciences Center, hasn't publicly announced any lab tenants after delivering in 2023.
Boston's life sciences market has dramatically changed since BioMed's 2021 deal to acquire the South End office buildings for lab conversions.
A surge of speculative lab projects — both new developments and conversions — came online just as demand fell off a cliff, leaving buildings empty across the region. As of the second quarter, vacancy had reached 28.7% across Greater Boston, according to CBRE.
Jon Banister contributed reporting.
