New England Development Makes $87M Kendall Square Office Buy
Steps from where it filed — and later withdrew — plans to double the CambridgeSide mall’s footprint, New England Development has acquired a Kendall Square Class-B office complex.
The developer purchased 222 Third St., also known as the American Twine Office Park, in East Cambridge from Transatlantic Investment Management for $87M, according to a deed registered June 3 in Middlesex County.
The sale of the building works out to $758/SF. The building was last sold in 1994 for $5M, according to the Reonomy platform.
Tenants at the office park include software companies Bioraft, Concentric and Euclides Technologies and life science company Context Labs.
"This purchase is at the center of what has long been a development zone of a very limited number of biotech lab type developers," Perry Director of Intelligence Brendan Carroll said. "The purchase price, along with the pedigree of and wide range of asset expertise of the buyer, suggest a variety of exciting future improvements to the asset."
Representatives with New England Development were not available for comment in time for publication.
There aren’t many Class-B office transactions in East Cambridge, in part because there are only about 20 such buildings in the submarket, according to Hunneman Research Director Liz Berthelette.
Most recent Cambridge Class-B sales have been in West Cambridge. The Davis Cos. and Invesco bought 10 Fawcett St. in Alewife in September for $59.7M, or $418/SF. Invesco also bought The Quad life science campus in West Cambridge from The Davis Cos. in April 2018 for $73M, or $364/SF.
New England Development has been known more lately for its proposal steps away from the American Twine Office Park at the Cambridgeside mall. The developer is redeveloping the third floor of the mall into about 140K SF of office.
But New England Development also filed plans this spring to add 600K SF of office and labs, primarily along First Street around the mall’s parking garage and closed Sears department store. The plan would double the project's size to 1.7M SF and include residential buildings.
After community pushback, the developer withdrew the larger redevelopment plan and is expected to file a new proposal later this summer.
