King Street, Carlyle Invest in Boston Suburb

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

The big boys bring the big bucks to Boston. A joint venture involving affiliates of King Street Properties and Carlyle Realty Partners VII L.P., have acquired 830 Winter St., a premier office/lab property in Waltham, Mass., and commercial real estate services provider HFF, helped the team close the deal by arranging approximately $74.2 million in first mortgage financing for the $104.2 million purchase.

Given the fast pace that characterizes the current investment climate, King Street/Carlyle was under the gun to put the financing together posthaste. The lending community responded favorably. “We did have interest from multiple types of sources, CMBS and bank, but because of the nature of the loan request–which was really for short-term , five-year or less and primarily floating rate–that lends itself to the banking community,” Greg Labine, managing director with HFF,  told Commercial Property Executive. And so it was a bank, Wells Fargo, which provided the joint venture with a short-term, floating rate loan.

Sited just outside of Boston, 830 Winter St. isn’t just any biotech building. The 14-year-old property, originally developed as the headquarters of Praecis Pharmaceuticals, is widely considered one of the top laboratory facilities in the suburbs of Boston. However, it wasn’t just the building’s 100-percent occupancy level, its top-notch tenants or its location in the leading life sciences market in the country that attracted the CBMS and bank lenders to the financing opportunity; it was something bigger.

“I can’t emphasize enough the important factor in all of this, which is strength of sponsorship,” Labine said. “Carlyle, with deep pockets and King Street, who has a proven track record of expertise in lab buildings, are absolutely critical.  You’re not investing in a tenant you’re investing in an industry and when you have the right sponsorship behind that statement, that’s when you can really start to get comfortable with these loans.”