BOSTON

Oxford Properties Group (“Oxford”), a leading global real estate investor, asset manager and developer, today announced the sale of 149 Hayes Memorial Drive, a newly built, 140,000 square foot state-of-the-art GMP facility in the Boston submarket of Marlborough, MA, for US$91 million. The property was acquired by Cambridge, MA based, leading biotechnology company Moderna, Inc. (“Moderna”).

Originally acquired by Oxford in 2021 as a 24-acre parcel of vacant land, Oxford developed the site into a two-story purpose-built biomanufacturing facility with market-leading building specs. Designed to accommodate a range of manufacturing processes, 149 Hayes features 36’ maximum clear heights, four loading docks and multiple freight elevators. The facility is anticipated to open in late 2024 after substantial buildout and expected to generate over 200 new jobs in the City of Marlborough by 2026.   

“This transaction perfectly encapsulates Oxford’s investment strategy and our capabilities as a developer,” commented Chad Remis, Executive Vice President, North America, Oxford Properties. “We acquired the property with high conviction in the continued demand for best-in-class biomanufacturing space in the Boston area and an intention to create value through our development capabilities, and thanks to our team, we delivered.

“While initially developed with a plan to lease the asset and hold for the long term, Moderna’s unsolicited offer to acquire the property allowed us to expedite our business plan execution. It is also evidence of the ongoing demand for cutting-edge GMP facilities which is a segment of the life sciences market that Oxford has purposefully cultivated deep expertise within. Our goal is to help our customers advance their science by providing the required and highly technical real estate infrastructure. Oxford has multiple ways of doing so, whether through traditional leases, ground-up and purpose-built development, sale and leaseback transactions.”

Oxford maintains a strong conviction in biomanufacturing as an integral part of the growth of its global life sciences business. Oxford’s existing North American cGMP portfolio spans 1.4 million square feet with an additional development pipeline of approximately 600,000 square feet. This holistic approach seeks to provide firms the complete breadth of the required and highly technical real estate infrastructure to research, develop then manufacture the life changing therapeutics of tomorrow. Oxford’s North American cGMP platform and pipeline stands at 11 facilities across six markets, with the largest concentration in the Boston region.

Boston is the world’s leading life sciences market with unparalleled research universities, funding, and talent. In 2022, the Boston Metro area ended with US$6.7 billion in life sciences venture capital funding, its second-highest annual total behind 2021 and a 40% increase compared to the 2019/2020 average. Similarly, Boston received over US$3 billion in funding from the National Institute of Health, trailing only the Greater New York Metro area nationally.

“While life sciences growth nationally has moderated after multiple record years, activity remains consistently above pre-pandemic levels. Furthermore, Boston continues to be an unparalleled market in terms of concentration of talent, capital and research innovations, and we will continue to deliver high-quality real estate infrastructure to support Boston’s growth and position as the global leader in life science,” said Christie Chen, Director of Investments at Oxford. “This strategic transaction with Moderna is a testament to our life science strategy and highlights the strength of institutional demand for high-quality biomanufacturing space.”

In total, Oxford’s Boston cGMP platform and pipeline spans four facilities. Oxford owns two fully leased facilities 92 Crowley (Marlborough, MA; 120,000 sq ft) and 33 New York Avenue (Framingham, MA; 113,000 sq ft), and two recently completed development projects, 23 Sycamore Avenue (Medford, MA; 108,000 sq ft) and 172 Middlesex Turnpike (Bedford, MA; 140,000 sq ft). 

Active in the life sciences industry since 2017, Oxford’s global life science business has grown across the top-ten North American life science markets, the UK and continental Europe. Its life sciences portfolio encompasses 8 million square feet of completed properties, conversion projects and ground-up development and includes R&D labs and cGMP facilities. Since the start of 2021, Oxford has invested over US$3 billion in global life sciences and has identified a further US$5 billion of follow-on development opportunities.