Innovative Industrial Properties, an investor that previously focused on cannabis real estate before breaking into life sciences last year, is now providing a big loan to a lab campus in Cambridge's Alewife neighborhood.
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The San Diego-based cannabis REIT entered into an agreement to provide a $245M mezzanine loan to IQHQ for the first phase of its 27-acre Alewife Park campus, IIP announced Thursday.
The loan will help pay off an existing $85M bridge loan and will fund the completion of the project and its lease-up. Roughly $111M will be provided at closing, with the remaining $134M funded over time through late next year.
The loan is expected to yield a 15.8% interest rate, IIP said, and has a February 2028 maturity date with a one-year extension option.
IQHQ had already invested $800M in the project prior to IIP's loan, according to the developer.
The development's first phase consists of three buildings totaling 392K SF. It is already 78% leased to Lila Therapeutics, which signed a 235K SF lease at 1 and 5 Alewife Park last year.
Its second phase is planned for two other sites with up to 364K SF of development potential. The developer acquired the Alewife property in 2020 for $125M.
IIP, founded in 2016, has primarily focused on investing in cannabis-related real estate. The company was co-founded by a veteran of the life sciences real estate sector, Alan Gold, who also co-founded Alexandria Real Estate Equities and served as CEO of BioMed Realty Trust.
In August 2025, IIP struck its first deal in the life sciences sector, also with IQHQ. It funded a $100M revolving line of credit for the life sciences developer and committed to purchasing $170M in preferred stock.
“We are pleased to further expand our life science portfolio through this investment for Alewife Park, which we believe will provide attractive risk-adjusted returns for IIP shareholders and significant accretion to our earnings,” Gold, IIP's executive chairman, said in a statement.
IQHQ faced some hurdles amid the life sciences sector's slowdown. The developer halted its $1B Fenway Center project in Boston and was sued by Aimco over a soured $50M investment into a multifamily component of a new development.
Its Alewife project is located near the site of an even larger development planned by Healthpeak Properties. The firm last month received Cambridge Planning Board approval for the permits needed to begin its 5M SF Alewife Quadrangle project, with more than 2,300 housing units and 2.6M SF of office and lab space.
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