Alexandria Acquires Waltham Property For $272M, Eyes New 'Mega Campus'
Alexandria Real Estate Equities is considering building a new "mega campus" project in the Boston suburbs after acquiring an office and life sciences property.
The life sciences REIT acquired 35 Gatehouse Drive in Waltham for $272M on Dec. 29, it revealed Monday in its fourth-quarter earnings report.
The firm said that the deal "represents an opportunity to expand our existing properties at 40, 50, 60 Sylvan Road and 840 Winter Street into a mega campus."
The 298K SF Gatehouse Drive property was previously owned by AstraZeneca, which used it as its "BioHub" health incubator campus. The property is now 100% occupied, and it has 75K SF of additional development potential, Alexandria said in the earnings report.
The deal comes after Alexandria acquired an adjacent Waltham property in August 2020 for $330M. That property, Reservoir Woods East, is located at 40, 50 and 60 Sylvan Road, and it was previously owned by a joint venture of Marcus Partners and The Davis Cos. The 515K SF three-building complex includes an additional 440K SF of developable life sciences space.
This isn't the first time the developer has proposed a "mega campus" in Boston's Route 128 suburbs. In February, Alexandria Executive Chairman Joel Marcus told Bisnow the firm had similar plans for the Raytheon campus in Woburn that it had just acquired for $125M.
Waltham's life sciences market has recorded the largest property sale in the region thus far this year, with TPG Real Estate last week selling its CenterPoint campus for $578M to an affiliate of CS Capital Management.
