Lendlease Debuts 350 KSF Boston Life Science Project

Lendlease has completed FORUM, a nine-story, 350,000-square-foot life sciences building in Boston’s Allston-Brighton neighborhood.

Designed by SGA and constructed by Consigli, FORUM reportedly is the first purpose-built life sciences facility in Boston Landing, a mixed-use neighborhood that includes the global headquarters of New Balance, facilities for the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins, and retail and entertainment.

Located at 60 Guest St., FORUM offers a 60-40 split between lab and office space and includes a publicly accessible ground floor, which currently features local chain Tradesman Coffee Shop & Lounge and an art exhibit by TurningArt and J. Perry Fine Art. A Lendlease spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive that no other space at the building has yet been leased.

The second floor features 10,000 square feet of speculative lab space, and the third floor provides tenant amenities that include a shared kitchen and dining area and a 7,000-square-foot terrace with cabanas, seating areas, grilling stations and high-speed Wi-Fi. FORUM also offers meeting and collaboration spaces equipped with audiovisual capabilities.

On the sustainability side, FORUM has achieved LEED Platinum, WiredScore Platinum and Fitwell certifications and also recently qualified for the highest-tier energy savings under the Mass Save program.

Nearby attractions and amenities include SmartLabs, a life sciences incubator; the soon-to-open Boston Landing Hotel; and the Allston Yards mixed-use neighborhood, now under construction.

In partnership with MassBioEd, a nonprofit education foundation focused on workforce development in life sciences, FORUM’s common areas will host programs aimed at educating local students and career seekers about the industry and equipping them with skills to pursue careers in the field.

Slowing, still going

The first quarter was the third straight quarter of negative net absorption for life science space in metro Boston, according to a report from Newmark. Asking rents declined by 5.2 percent year-over-year, as vacancy rose by 650 basis points over the same period. That increase was the largest among 13 markets tallied by Newmark.

After two years of record deliveries, no new deliveries are imminent. Still, Boston accounts for about 17 percent of lab space in the construction pipeline nationally. Prominent among projects now under way is One Milestone, a 440,000-square-foot development by Breakthrough Properties and Tishman Speyer, scheduled for delivery in 2026.

Newmark’s report notes: “Any changes to NIH funding will likely have an outsized effect on Massachusetts as it typically ranks first in the country for per-capital federal funding.”

In January, BioMed Realty topped out its 585 Kendall project, a 637,000-square-foot life science building in Cambridge. At that time, Takeda Pharmaceuticals had already preleased all 600,000 square feet of the building’s R&D space.