This Week's Boston Deal Sheet

Historians will not look back at 2023 as a happy year for commercial real estate. But that was then and this is now. As the Bisnow newsroom learned in the waning hours of 2023, the industry is more than ready for 2024 — for the challenge of willing it to become…

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For the biotech industry, 2023 ended with an exceptionally bright spot amid a difficult year. A CRISPR treatment for sickle cell anemia by Vertex, the first example of this technology getting Food and Drug Administration approval, showcased the potential for new technologies to bolster the industry. 

The Dec. 8 approval garnered headlines and excitement over the future of a new technology. What it didn’t immediately lead to was a vast expansion of Vertex’s real estate footprint or plans for new leases.

The established firm had already embarked on a significant expansion last year, with plans to open a 344K SF research and manufacturing facility in Boston’s Seaport, near its existing lab and research space, by 2025. When the door opens to the new facility, a $400M project with Related Beal, Vertex will take up 1.9M SF across five Boston sites.

“These buildings represent a further significant investment in our unique R&D strategy, to transform the lives of people with serious diseases, like sickle cell disease and Type 1 diabetes, using cutting-edge genetic and cell-based therapies,” CEO Jeffrey Leiden said in a statement last year.

The case of Vertex presents one of the most recent and high-profile examples of the often challenging-to-predict connection between milestones and approvals and lab real estate. The first clearly leads to the second, but companies and startups tend to differ around when they make these kinds of decisions. Often, biotech…

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In Case You Missed It...

This series goes deep with some of the most compelling figures in commercial real estate: the deal-makers, the game-changers, the city-shapers and the larger-than-life personalities that keep CRE interesting.

Looking at Thomas Nguyen’s résumé it might appear that commercial real estate is just another stop along his journey to becoming exorbitantly rich, famous or both. 

After all, he had a legitimate shot at winning over $4M when he was cast on Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge, was a co-founder of beloved Houston-based South African restaurant chain Peli Peli and briefly worked as a commercial litigator.

But that’s not the case at all and not just because he didn’t win the reality show, Nguyen told Bisnow. Restaurant Practice Leader of CBRE’s Houston office is the most enjoyable job Nguyen has ever had, he said. 

“Now looking back at everything, I feel like I was always meant to be in this role,” Nguyen said. 

Nguyen joined CBRE in 2021 following the closure of the two remaining Peli Peli restaurants, the first of which opened in The Galleria more than a decade earlier. The well-known chain was featured on CNBC’s Restaurant Startup and Eater Houston named Peli Peli Kitchen the best fast-casual restaurant of the year in 2017. 

“I wouldn't be in this role at CBRE without my experience as a restaurateur in Houston,” Nguyen said. 

In Nguyen’s time with CBRE, he has represented tenants with diverse and eccentric concepts, including Ojo de Agua, a Mexican health-focused fast-casual chain in Houston’s upscale River Oaks District; Drop Shots, an indoor pickleball court with plans to add a bar at Houston’s Farmers Market; and Chi’Lantro BBQ, an Austin-based Korean concept known for its kimchi fries in the Houston Heights. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bisnow: You have a diverse résumé with experience including restaurant ownership and commercial litigation. How did you end up in commercial real estate?  Nguyen: After Covid, I wanted to figure out where I was going to finish my career. One of my mentors is a developer in…

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