This Week's Boston Deal Sheet

Kendall Square biotechnology firm bluebird bio is moving its headquarters to 61K SF at 455 Grand Union Blvd. in Somerville’s Assembly Row in a lease with Federal Realty Investment Trust.

The company, which researches gene therapies for severe genetic diseases, will move approximately 425 employees to the site next spring and save more than $120M in costs over the next six years, it said Friday in a statement. Bluebird bio, which this week also completed a spinoff of its cancer business, will maintain lab space at 60 Binney St. in Cambridge through 2023. The Binney office is expected to be partially subleased by Facebook.

The 455 Grand Union Blvd. building is home to Puma’s new North American headquarters and sits in the Assembly Row commercial district that also includes restaurants, retail, entertainment and the MBTA’s Assembly station. It will be a part of Somerville’s growing life sciences ecosystem, including BioMed Realty’s nearby planned 1.2M SF lab-oriented mixed-use project.

LEASES

Renewable energy company Electric Hydrogen Co. expanded its headquarters with a 20K SF lease expansion into 3 Strathmore Road in Natick, bringing its footprint to 30K SF. Electric Hydrogen five months ago leased 10K SF at 1 Strathmore Road, both former MilliporeSigma facilities owned by a Lincoln Property Co. affiliate. 

The property at 3 Strathmore Road includes a warehouse, lab and office space. LPC's Tim Latham represented Electric Hydrogen in the deal and was joined by Chris Devaux and James Tambone in representing the landlord.

EXECS

TA Realty tapped Anne Peck as vice president and head of environmental, social, governance and resiliency efforts. The former AEW Capital Management executive will be tasked with developing TA Realty’s annual ESG+R goals and integrating the measures across the firm’s assets. Peck, with a more than 20-year career in real estate, previously worked at the Cambridge Housing Authority, JLL and Bovis Lend Lease.

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Roxbury-based affordable housing developer Madison Park Development Corp. named Intiya Ambrogi-Isaza as its new director of real estate. Ambrogi-Isaza previously worked at Boston-based OppCo, a spinoff of local organizations Nuestra Comunidad and The Neighborhood Developers, where she was a senior development manager. 

SALES

Beacon Communities paid the Young Women’s Christian Association $51M for 140 Clarendon St. and 410 Stuart St. The developer last year announced plans to redevelop the building and deliver 210 affordable housing units, in addition to maintaining a Boston Public Schools facility, a 250-seat theater, offices for the TW Boston and approximately 4,800 SF of ground-floor retail.

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Texas-based Redwood Housing Partners bought the King’s Beach Tower Apartments at 130 Eastern Ave. in Lynn for $47M. Redwood purchased the residential asset from Marblehead, Massachusetts-based Crowninshield Management Corp. 

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Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing purchased a 64-acre parcel from Braintree-based Campanelli for $18.4M. Campanelli will develop a 451K SF spec warehouse that is expected to deliver next fall. MSREI tapped Newmark’s Boston industrial team led by Tony Coskren, Brian Pinch, Rick Schuhwerk and Ed Jarosz to market the building. 

Campanelli has also tapped the Newmark team of Senior Managing Director Tyler McGrail, Executive Managing Director Torin Taylor, Vice Chairman Michael Frisoli and associate Margaret Fee to lease the former Cisco headquarters in Boxborough, a 409K SF office space with up to 1M SF of development potential. 

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AEW Capital Management paid Marcus Partners $29.5M for 5 Branch St., a 94K SF office in Methuen with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as an anchor tenant. Marcus Partners completed a $25M redevelopment of the office last January.

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Healthpeak Properties paid Global Organics $17.8M for 68 Moulton St. in Alewife. The purchase is Healthpeak’s latest West Cambridge buy in a neighborhood spending spree totaling more than $373M since September.

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Brickman, a New York-based investor, paid $17.6M to QS Forbes Boulevard for the fully leased 82K SF 120 Forbes Blvd. warehouse in Mansfield. The CBRE team of Scott Dragos, Chris Skeffington, Doug Jacoby, Anthony Hayes, Roy Sandeman, Tim Mulhall and Dan Hines arranged the sale on behalf of QS Forbes, a company owned by Florida-based investor Gary Langton. CBRE Debt & Structured Finance’s Andrew Stone secured financing for Brickman.

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Colorado-based REIT National Storage Affiliates Trust paid $16.8M for a CubeSmart self-storage facility at 137 Summit St. in Peabody. The warehouse was previously owned by an affiliate of Newport Beach, California-based North American Self Storage Group.

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Clark University, a private institution in Worcester, acquired 520 Park Ave. and 111 Maywood St., a former 7.3-acre Chevrolet car dealership, for $6.95M from the dealership’s family ownership. Kelleher & Sadowsky’s Will Kelleher and Drew Higgins represented both Clark and the family. Clark hasn’t determined future plans for the site, the brokerage said.

FINANCING

The Related Cos. secured a $99.2M mortgage from Citizens Bank for its newly acquired Charlestown industrial portfolio. The properties, totaling 111K SF, include 6 Bunker Hill, an industrial facility; 420 Rutherford Ave., a CubeSmart self-storage building; and 440 Rutherford Ave., a research and development building.