This Week's Boston Deal Sheet
Pennrose filed plans with the Boston Planning & Development Agency for the adaptive reuse of the former Blessed Sacrament Church in Jamaica Plain.
The plans call for the former church, located at 361 Centre St. near Hyde Square, to be transformed into a 63K SF mixed-use and mixed-income housing development. The development would include 55 residential units and a multipurpose performance space. The units would consist of 14 studio apartments, 22 one-bedrooms and 19 two-bedrooms.
The 108-year-old church closed in 2002, and the Hyde Square Task Force, which purchased the property in 2014, selected Pennrose to redevelop the building before it crumbled apart, according to Universal Hub. Pennrose plans to preserve the church's architecture and history while adding to the neighborhood's housing stock. The units will be built into the existing structure and into two additions at the rear of the building.
Pennrose beat out two competing developers, NuVu Studio and Alvarado & Beaujean for the site, according to WGBH. The task force chose Pennrose because of the addition of the 200-seat performance space, capital support to help with the task force's debt and consideration in the naming of the new building.
Pennrose is also working on The Pryde in Hyde Park, New England's first LGBTQIA+-friendly senior citizen apartment building in the former William Barton Rodgers School.
SALES
Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. acquired a newly developed industrial project in Hyde Park for $104M. The 21-acre site is located at 8 Industrial Drive in Readville, a section of the neighborhood. The site, which was once an MBTA rail yard, was redeveloped by the seller, First Highland Management & Development.
The former owner built out three of the five proposed buildings, with one of them being fully occupied by two tenants, ePac Flexible Packaging and Designer’s Choice. The other two buildings remain unoccupied.
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Jumbo Capital and Apollo Global Management bought a two-story office building in Canton for $21M with plans to redevelop the space into a manufacturing facility. The project will add another 46K SF of high-bay space.
The redevelopment will be financed through a $57M loan provided by Cambridge Savings Bank. Colliers represented both the buyers and seller, The Shearwater Cos., in the transaction as well as procuring the financing. The team includes Colliers' Frank Petz, Matt Sherry, Brooke Howard, Rob Schlesinger, Jeff Black, Bryan Koop and Sean Burke.
LEASES
R.W. Holmes negotiated seven lab leases totaling more than 108K SF in Burlington, Natick and Waltham in Q2, according to Boston Real Estate Times. The group landed leases in Waltham for Snap Dragon Chemistry, Boston Dynamics, Adden Energy and AmberGen Inc. It signed leases in Natick including Genius Biotechnology and Inmunorable, and it inked a lease in Burlington for Boston Lab Services.
FINANCING
MassHousing closed on $10.4M in financing for The Neighborhood Developers Inc. to create a new affordable and workforce development in Chelsea. The 25 Sixth St. property is planned to become a mid-rise complex near Bellingham Square, including 56 mixed-income rental and six homeownership units.
The Neighborhood Developers Inc. acquired the parcel, which had an empty warehouse on the site, shortly before the pandemic. Before developing it, the firm used the empty warehouse as a pantry that distributed thousands of meals to the community.
EXECS
Michael Nichols was named the president of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District. After a unanimous decision, Nichols will be the BID’s second president, the first being Rosemarie Sansone, who died in February. The appointment comes after Nichols served for five years as executive director of the Esplanade Association and as chief of staff at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy.
CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
Gov. Charlie Baker's administration chose Leggat McCall Properties for a $1B redevelopment of the Charles F. Hurley building in downtown Boston. The firm will work on transforming the 5.5-acre site into a mixed-use development including 200 new housing units, a new lab building and office space.
Leggat McCall is ground-leasing the property from the state, and rather than paying money toward the lease, the firm will deliver new office space for Massachusetts employees at no cost. Plans for the redevelopment were announced in 2019, with the Baker administration calling for offers on the site in September 2021.
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The Davis Cos. and Boston Development Group celebrated the topping off of Phase 1 of their 66 Galen St. life sciences project in Watertown. The joint venture completed the structural phase of construction on the 244K SF project.
The project is a two-building campus that will include over 450K SF of space. Building amenities include six private tenant outdoor spaces, a common rooftop balcony, a fitness center, on-site retail space and a bike room. The campus is expected to be available for occupancy in 2023.
