News
Real Recovery
March 29, 2012
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| Is the recovery a mirage? Ask National Development partners Ed Marsteiner, Jack O?Neil, Steve Kinsella, Ted Tye, and Tom Alperin. In ?11, the firm grew its staff 25% to 158 people, in part for 2012?s project launches: This week, construction started full tilt on the Longwood Center, which the company is developing with partners in the LMA; National Development and the Lewis family are building Kensington Place, 381 luxury rental apartments downtown; and within 30 days, it'll break ground with WS Development on MarketStreet Lynnfield (400k SF of retail, 80k SF of offices, and 180 rental apartments—another developer plans 40 units of seniors housing). National Development is also permitting The Ink Block in the South End (475 rentals, 80K SF retail), hoping for a spring '13 construction start. |
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| This week, Dana Farber signed on as the anchor tenant, agreeing to lease 154k SF, or 37%, of Longwood Center. National/Charles River Realty and Alexandria Real Estate Equities are putting up half the equity to develop the 414k SF, $300M to $400M office and lab building across the street from Dana Farber, while Clarion Partners will provide the other half. (No third half? Perhaps the recession is still upon us.) MassMutual is providing as much as 60% of the construction financing. National and Alexandria purchased the site for $70M in ?07 but mothballed it the next year because financing for big projects wasn't available. The likely tenants, LMA medical institutions, saw their endowments plummet with the stock market and NIH funding cuts, so some put projects on hold. |
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| We took this while pretending to be on a police stakeout. In the past few weeks, site prep and foundation work has started at Brookline and Longwood Avenues, where the glass- and metal-clad Longwood Center is slated to open in fall ?14. Designed by Elkus Manfredi, the 11-story building, with underground parking for 290, features HVAC and electrical capacity that assures uninterrupted power and exceeds the capacity of many existing LMA facilities, Jack says. LEED-certifiable, the building features customized, pre-fabricated fa ade panels, two floors of mechanical penthouses, and nine floors of labs and offices. The GC is John Moriarity. |
