Lyme Properties To Sell A Portion Of Cambridge Portfolio To BioMed Realty Trust For $524 Million
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE, April 18, 2005 - David Clem, Managing Director of Lyme Properties, announced an agreement to sell eight life science buildings and one parking garage in Cambridge, MA to BioMed Realty Trust of San Diego, California. The purchase price for the 1,150,000 square foot portfolio is $524 million, making it the largest single transaction in the history of life sciences real estate. “This transaction validates the work of Lyme for the past ten years and demonstrates the investment potential of first-class research space in well established academic centers,” said Clem.
Lyme Properties retains ownership of its development pipeline, representing 2,525,000 square feet of fully permitted space in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts New Haven, Connecticut and Houston, Texas.
The sale to BioMed includes the widely acclaimed Genzyme Center in Kendall Square, Cambridge, which recently received a Gold certification from LEEDS, the recognized standard for sustainable, environmentally friendly design. Other buildings in the portfolio to be sold are 40 Erie Street and 200 Sidney Street in Lyme’s Fort Washington Research Park, the headquarters of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Lyme is selling 675 Kendall Street, 270 Albany Street, 325 Vassar Street, 21 Erie Street, 47 Erie Street Garage, and Centerra Biolabs in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The tenants of other buildings to be acquired by BioMed include Monsanto, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Metabolix, Momenta, and Dartmouth College. Lyme was advised and represented in the transaction by Morgan Stanley.
Lyme Properties is one of the country’s most experienced life science developers. “The sale of these assets will allow the Lyme team to continue to do what we do best – identify development opportunities, manage the permitting challenges, and build award winning laboratory facilities that produce solid economic results for our partners and investors and important research space for our tenants,” said Clem. Lyme Properties, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Lyme Timber Company, began developing life science space in Cambridge in 1993, and quickly grew to become the largest life science property developer in New England and one of the largest in the country.
Lyme’s largest joint venture partner, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, is a UK-based financial services company offering life insurance, banking and investment opportunities to its customers. Scottish Widows is selling its interest in two of the Kendall Square buildings with Lyme and continuing in the development of Center for Life Science – Boston in the Longwood Medical Area as Lyme’s partner.
Clem added, “This transaction represents less than one third of our portfolio. It will allow Lyme to reinvest capital in our development pipeline and to explore other markets. I am delighted that BioMed’s management team will assume the stewardship of these properties. They share our vision of life science in general and our commitment to the communities in which we have chosen to invest.”
BioMed currently owns properties in San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Boston, consisting of 44 buildings with 3.0 million square feet of life science and laboratory real estate. “The acquisition of this portfolio establishes BioMed as a leading owner of life science office and laboratory buildings in the Cambridge market, the most sophisticated and established scientific cluster on the East Coast,” said Alan D. Gold, president and chief executive officer of BioMed Realty Trust. “These first-class assets reinforce BioMed’s corporate mission to provide real estate to the life science industry, and further highlight our premier life science real estate-oriented management team.”
Download the press release here.