CHARLESTOWN, MASS. — Pickleball operator PickleBOS will open a 22,570-square-foot sports entertainment venue in Charlestown, a northern metro of Boston. The site at 440 Rutherford Ave. is located within Charlestown Labs, a 166,000-square-foot office and life sciences campus owned by Related Beal. Designed by StudioTYAK, the indoor facility will feature 10 courts that will be equipped with TVs, iPads and cameras for live scoring and instant replays, as well as private event spaces. The opening is slated for December.
BOSTON — M&T Realty Capital Corp. has provided $44.8 million in financing for 247 Hancock, a 47-unit mixed-income housing project that will be located in the Dorchester area of Boston. The six-story building will offer studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. Amenities will include a fitness studio, tenant lounge and rooftop deck. The financing includes a $6.3 million Freddie Mac unfunded forward commitment under the 9 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, a $19.2 million construction loan and a $19.3 million tax credit equity investment, with the latter two components being executed by M&T Bank. Construction is slated for an early 2027 completion.
MARLBOROUGH, MASS. — Locally based developer The Procopio Cos. has topped out 57 Main, a 92-unit multifamily project located in the western Boston suburb of Marlborough. Designed by The Architectural Team and built by Angus Construction, 57 Main will feature 52 one-bedroom apartments and 40 two-bedroom apartments, as well as 3,220 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a landscaped courtyard facing Union Park. Completion is slated for next spring.
BILLERICA, MASS. — Newmark has arranged the recapitalization of Axis Park North, a 450,000-square-foot industrial and life sciences campus located north of Boston in Billerica. The owner, a partnership between Camber Development and Wheelock Street Capital, sold a stake in the property to GEM Realty Capital for $79 million. The percentage was not disclosed. The six-building campus can support manufacturing and research-and-development uses and is currently home to tenants such as ASMPT AEi, Generac Power Systems and SuperConducting Systems. Robert Griffin, Edward Maher, Matthew Pullen, James Tribble, Samantha Hallowell, William Sleeper, Tony Coskren and Brian Pinch of Newmark represented both sides in the transaction.
WAREHAM, MASS. — A partnership between Pennrose and the Wareham Redevelopment Authority (WRA) has opened Swifts Landing, a 93-unit affordable housing complex located near Cape Cod in the southern part of The Bay State. Swifts Landing comprises a 49-unit building with a mix of workforce and affordable apartments and a 44-unit building for renters aged 62 and older. Units come in one-, two- and three-bedroom floor plans and are subject to a range of income restrictions. Amenities include a clubhouse with an outdoor patio, fitness center, community garden and open green space, a playground and wooded walking paths. MassDevelopment provided $16.3 million in financing for the project.
FRAMINGHAM, MASS. — JLL has arranged $123.6 million in financing for a portion of Shoppers World, a 752,000-square-foot retail power center located in the western Boston suburb of Framingham. Details on the nature of the financing and the portion of the center covered by it were not disclosed. Shoppers World was 99 percent leased at the time of the loan closing to tenants such as T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeSense, Sierra Trading Post, Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Scott Aiese, Alex Staikos, Amy Lousararian and Parker Morrison of JLL arranged the four-year, fixed-rate loan on behalf of the borrower, Urban Edge Properties. The direct lender was not disclosed.
WATERTOWN, MASS. — JLL has arranged the $119.2 million refinancing of 500 Forge, a 158,683-square-foot life sciences property in Watertown, located just west of Boston. The financing consists of a $94 million senior loan from Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and a $25.2 million mezzanine loan from Tishman Speyer. The property, which is located within the Arsenal Yards mixed-use development, was fully redeveloped in 2023 to feature 60 percent lab/research-and-development space and 40 percent office space. The property was fully leased at the time of the loan closings to three tenants: Mariana Oncology, Orna Therapeutics and AvenCell Therapeutics. Brett Paulsrud, Henry Schaffer and Geoff Goldstein of JLL arranged the financing on behalf of the borrower, a partnership between Boylston Properties and institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
NORTH ANDOVER, MASS. — A public-private partnership between Greystar and Merrimack College has topped off two student housing projects totaling 540 beds on the university’s campus in North Andover, a northern suburb of Boston. The first building will house 351 beds across 180 units, all of which will be traditional dormitory doubles except for the resident advisor units. The second building will house 189 beds across 54 units, the majority of which will feature three- and four-bedroom suite configurations. The properties will also feature a combined total of 12,609 square feet of academic space, a pavilion for honors students and a fitness center. Timelines for completion of the projects were not disclosed.
BOSTON — A joint venture led by locally based REIT Diversified Healthcare Trust (NASDAQ: DHC) has received $1 billion for the refinancing of the Vertex Pharmaceuticals headquarters facility in Boston. A consortium of lenders — Morgan Stanley Bank, Bank of Montreal, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan — provided the financing, which was structured with a five-year term and a fixed interest rate. Local investment firm RMR Group, which provides asset and property management services for the joint venture, arranged the debt. The majority of the proceeds will be used to retire $620 million in fixed-rate debt on the property, as well as to fund leasing reserves and repatriate cash to investors. Located at 50 Northern Ave. and 11 Fan Pier Blvd. in Boston’s Seaport District, the two-building facility spans approximately 1.1 million square feet. Both buildings were constructed in 2013. Vertex, which produces medicines and therapies for genetic disorders including cystic fibrosis, renewed its lease in August 2024 and will remain the property’s sole occupant through 2044. The joint venture ownership group includes multiple institutional investment groups that were not named in the announcement. Diversified Healthcare’s stake in the property is 10 percent; the company previously sold a 10 percent …
You can be a best-in-class operator with the coolest concept on the block, or you can be a well-capitalized landlord who knows all the right people, but if rapid, sustainable growth in the Boston retail market is what you seek, you might be SOL. According to local brokers, the high-demand, low-supply dynamic that currently exists in most major U.S. retail markets does not fully encapsulate the difficulties that tenants and landlords alike face in growing their footprints in the greater Boston area. As to why growing store counts or portfolios is so challenging in this market, the answer varies depending on who you ask. But a collective recap of all wide-ranging barriers to entry and disruptive forces at play paints a picture of a market that is borderline impenetrable for many tenants and perpetually stagnating for many landlords. “Boston remains an incredibly high-barrier-to-entry market,” says Zach Nitsche, director of retail capital markets in JLL’s Boston office. “A statistic we like to share with clients and industry people that haven’t historically invested in Boston and New England is that less than 5 percent of our total retail product has been constructed after the Global Financial Crisis. So far this year, the …