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One of the top life sciences brokers in the country is leaving his post at CBRE to take a high-level post at an institutional investor.
CBRE Vice Chairman Steve Purpura, head of the firm’s Boston Consulting Practice and northeast Life Science Practice, has been named president of Beacon Capital Partners' life science platform, the company announced Friday. The prolific broker has been credited as a guiding force behind the Boston region’s growth into the nation’s life sciences epicenter.
“Beacon is incredibly well positioned to capture the immense market opportunity in the development of specialty-built life science real estate and I look forward to working with the team to add to the firm’s storied legacy of investing in iconic real estate,” Purpura said in a statement.
Purpura advised the market’s largest players, from BioMed Realty Trust to WS Development, and has recently been active outside of Boston, most recently arranging $600M in funding for Taconic Partners and Nuveen Real Estate for a Manhattan life sciences development.
Purpura oversaw more than 110 CBRE members from Philadelphia to Boston, and the brokerage firm’s life science practice said it has been involved in over 15M SF of life sciences deals in the past five years. He also played roles in securing tenants including Harvard Business School Publishing, the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics, and life sciences companies at Allston's Boston Landing while at Transwestern.
Beacon currently manages 2.6M SF of life sciences properties in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle with an additional 3M SF in rights to develop, the company said. Beacon’s Boston portfolio includes stakes in the 40-story office tower 53 State St. and the planned 2 Harbor St. in the Seaport, where Beacon and Millennium Partners are planning a 380K SF life sciences building.
Purpura was previously a vice president at Trammell Crow and founding partner of Richards Barry Joyce & Partners before it was acquired in 2013 by Transwestern. A 48-person team led by Purpura completed more than 9.1M SF of leases in Massachusetts in 2017 before he and his team moved en masse to CBRE.
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