Dealmaker: Alexandria Real Estate Equities Acquires One Kendall Square for $725M

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Pasadena, Calif., purchased One Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass. from DivcoWest, Boston, for $725 million, or $1,124 per square foot.

The sales price marks the Boston area’s largest sale of 2016 on both total transaction size and per-square-foot metrics. 

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Capital Markets represented DivcoWest in the transaction. NGKF U.S. Head of Capital Markets Robert Griffin, Vice Chairman Edward Maher and Executive Managing Director Matthew Pullen oversaw the transaction in conjunction with NGKF Executive Managing Directors Mark Winters and David Townsend.  

The Boston Business Journal reported that DivcoWest purchased the science and technology campus in 2014 for $395 million.

The 11-building One Kendall Square spans 7.8 acres in the East Cambridge submarket. Its office, laboratory and retail space is presently 99 percent leased to tenants anchored by Akamai, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, InVivo Therapeutics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

“One Kendall Square offers a critical mass of best-in-class, institutional-quality real estate,” Maher said. He noted that the campus received nearly $100 million in capital improvements over the past 10 years.

Transwestern’s Boston office reported that the office vacancy rate in the East Cambridge submarket fell to 2.7 percent in the third quarter and Class A rents per square foot rose to $76.39.