Intercontinental Makes History in Cambridge Submarket

By Anna Spiewak, Senior News Editor

Chris Skeffington, Transwestern/RBJ

Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. is selling one of its babies, big babies.

The SEC registered investment adviser is trading 830 Winter St. in Waltham, Mass. to a joint venture between King Street Properties and Carlyle Group.

The 182,000-square-foot laboratory and office building fetched $104.2 million, or $572 per square foot, and is the largest such sale in Waltham since 2008, according to Transwestern/RBJ, who represented the seller in the transaction.

Intercontinental bought the 15-year old property in 2005 as a partial sale-leaseback to Praecis Pharmaceuticals. It was only 35 percent leased at the time. Within 18 months, Intercontinental leased the remaining space and kept it full ever since. But now, “the stabilized nature of the building being 100 percent leased, coupled with extremely aggressive capital-markets environment puts the property and Intercontinental in an excellent position to sell,” Chris Skeffington, senior vice president, capital markets at Transwestern/RBJ told Commercial Property Executive.

And so Intercontinental is turning a leaf and letting the new owners enjoy the new asset, which has several perks.

The building’s systems are designed and sized to accommodate both chemical and biological laboratories. On-site amenities include a full-service cafeteria, outside seating, conference facilities and structured parking with various hotels, restaurants and retails destinations nearby, according to a Transwestern prepared statement.

“830 Winter St. is considered the top/biotech building in suburban Boston. It is fully leased with a strong leasing history,” Skeffington added. “The strength of the Greater Boston lab market, and more specifically East Cambridge, continues to demonstrate a decrease in vacancy and an increase in rents. This bodes well for a Class A suburban lab space like 830 Winter St.”

According to Transwestern/RBJ’s research, Waltham had 998,000 square feet of laboratory space with 7.5 percent vacancy at the close of second quarter 2015. For the same period, Greater Boston’s suburbs had 5.5 million square feet of lab space, with 8.1 percent vacancy.

“Greater Boston’s life sciences industry shows no signs of slowing down, making this a tremendous opportunity for our client to achieve maximum return on investment,” Skeffington concluded in a prepared statement.

Skeffington, John Lashar, Roy Sandeman, Jon Varholak and Steve Purpura of Transwestern/RBJ represented the seller and sourced the buyer. Transwestern/RBJ has also been retained by the new ownership to provide leasing services for the building.

The tenants include Histogenics Corp., GlaxoSmithKline and ImmunoGen Inc.

Source: Transwestern