March 4, 2023 | By Greg Ryan, Boston Business Journal
The Davis Cos. this week topped off a lab building under construction in Cambridge’s Alewife area, with plans to wrap up work by the end of 2023. The Boston-based real estate firm marked the construction milestone at 101 Smith Place, a 162,000-square-foot project on The Quad, Davis’ nearly 10-acre life sciences campus. Davis is developing the project in partnership with Invesco Real Estate.
The new building will be the largest yet at the campus. Already up and running are the 76,000-square-foot site 10 Wilson Road and the 37,000-square-foot building 75 Moulton St., whose tenants include Ginkgo Bioworks and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
The 101 Smith site will feature “spec” suites, or spaces fit-out to enable quick move-ins, something that often appeals to smaller startups looking to occupy a space as soon as possible. No tenants have yet been announced for the building. CBRE is handling leasing.
“The opportunity to develop a multibuilding campus in the city of Cambridge is truly unique, and we are thrilled to add this state-of-the-art Class A facility to our 9.8-acre life science park,” Davis Chief Portfolio Management Officer Cappy Daume said in a statement. Davis is planning another 250,000 square feet across two buildings at The Quad, at 40 Smith Place, on which it expects to break ground this year or next. Labs in the western parts of Cambridge do not typically fetch the rents or occupancy rates seen in Kendall Square.
The $102.26 average asking rent in the neighborhood as of the end of 2022 was just behind the Seaport District and Fenway and just ahead of Allston-Brighton, according to CBRE data.