BOSTON
Oxford Properties Group (“Oxford”), a leading global real estate investor, asset manager and business builder, today announced the purchase and long-term lease back of 92 Crowley Drive. The asset is a 120,000 square foot state-of-the-art biomanufacturing facility under construction and near completion in the Boston life sciences submarket of Marlborough, MA. As part of a real estate transaction with Resilience, a leading technology-focused biomanufacturing company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines, Oxford will acquire the building and lease the property back to Resilience for up to 30 years. This deal structure raises proceeds for Resilience while allowing it to conduct its day-to-day business operations with full use of the facility.
The acquisition grows Oxford’s existing North American cGMP portfolio to 1.4 million square feet with an additional development pipeline of over 1 million square feet. The transaction highlights Oxford’s deep conviction in biomanufacturing as an integral part of the growth of its global life sciences business. 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 has now grown to 12 facilities across six markets, with the largest concentration in the Boston region totalling 775,000 square feet.
Upon final completion this year, 92 Crowley will be Resilience’s flagship facility in the US with state of the art analytical and manufacturing technology. The facility is designed with best-in-class specifications and multi-modality manufacturing capabilities, featuring dedicated manufacturing suites, with complementary office and warehouse space.
Resilience has become a leading biomanufacturing company with multi-modality manufacturing facilities across North America. The transaction at 92 Crowley represents the third sale and leaseback between Oxford and Resilience in a growing strategic partnership.
“We continue to develop a robust expertise on the real estate needs of biomanufacturing and our footprint in this space is a key pillar of our investment strategy to build a global life sciences business of scale," said Chad Remis, Executive Vice President, North America at Oxford. “GMP facilities are unique, highly-technical assets and represent a segment of the life sciences market in which we have intentionally set out to become a market leader. Today’s acquisition strengthens our growing relationship with Resilience, and adds another state-of-the-art, income generating asset to our North American platform.
“Our growing relationship with Resilience is a great example of the purpose of Oxford’s life science business. By investing our capital and capabilities to own, manage and build life sciences real estate infrastructure, we can free up capital for our customers to focus on advancing their science and delivering the life changing therapeutics of tomorrow.”
Boston is the world’s leading life sciences market with unparalleled research universities, funding, and talent. In 2021, it saw record levels of life sciences investment in market with US$13.8 billion total life sciences venture capital funding and a 10-year high US$3.4 billion of local funding from the National Institute of Health. These new levels of investment continue to generate company formation and growth.
“Our acquisition of 92 Crowley aligns strongly with our biomanufacturing strategy. Its proximity to our existing cGMP investments in Boston provides significant operational efficiencies,” said Christie Chen, Director of Investments at Oxford. “Boston continues to be an unparalleled market in terms of talent, capital and research institutions and we will continue to deliver new real estate infrastructure into the region to support its growth and position as the global leader in life science. This conviction is evidenced by three cGMP developments that we are undertaking in the Boston market to serve the growing demand for biopharmaceutical manufacturing.”
In total, Oxford’s Boston cGMP platform and pipeline spans five facilities. In addition to 92 Crowley, Oxford owns and operates 33 New York Avenue, a fully leased and fully operational 113,000 sq ft GMP facility in Framingham, MA. Oxford’s associated development pipeline spans three assets, all nearing completion. 149 Hayes Memorial Drive (Marlborough, MA; 140,000 sq ft), 23 Sycamore Avenue (Medford, MA; 108,000 sq ft), and 172 Middlesex Turnpike (Bedford, MA; 140,000 sq ft).
Oxford has invested in the life sciences industry since 2017. It has built substantial expertise in the sector while deploying capital through a variety of equity and credit investments as well as cultivating a significant development pipeline. Since the start of 2021 alone, Oxford has invested over US$3 billion in global life sciences and has identified a further US$5 billion of follow-on development opportunities. Oxford’s life sciences business now operates across 10 leading North American life sciences markets and in key European markets through holdings in Cambridge, London, and Paris.
