CBRE Investment Management Fund Acquires Partial Interest in Premier Life Sciences Property in Boston’s Kendall Square

A fund sponsored by CBRE Investment Management has acquired a partial interest in 100 Binney, a 432,931-square-foot life sciences building located in the Kendall Square neighborhood of Boston, through a joint venture with an institutional investor and a publicly traded REIT. The acquisition is aligned with the fund’s strategy to increase exposure to emerging growth sectors, including life sciences.

Originally built in 2018, 100 Binney is a 10-story, Class A life sciences building, which was built to prioritize sustainability, efficiency and flexibility, with features to support a variety of mission-critical requirements from both office and lab users. These features include lab and office spaces, highly functional floor plates averaging 43,000 square feet, 14’6” ceiling heights, bicycle parking, shower facilities, subterranean parking, ample loading docks and HVAC systems, and solar panels on the roof. The building, which is LEED Gold certified, is currently 100 percent leased and is home to several notable life sciences tenants. The property also benefits from convenient access to the MBTA’s Red and Green lines, as well as a tenant-exclusive shuttle, providing connectivity to the wider Boston area.

“The life sciences sector has continued to see strong growth fueled by the high influx of public and private funding amid a heightened focus on bioscience because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This emerging sector remains a key focus of our forward-looking investment strategy given our belief that the demand for quality lab and research spaces is expected to remain steady for the foreseeable future,” said Larissa Belova, Portfolio Manager for CBRE Investment Management.

Sondra Wenger, Head of Americas Commercial Operator Division for CBRE Investment Management, added: “We believe that this purpose-built property adds significant value to the fund’s portfolio given that Boston is the nation’s leading life sciences market boasting an unparalleled pool of highly skilled talent, best-in-class infrastructure and a strong innovation culture. 100 Binney is already home to several leading life sciences firms, and we expect that it will continue to be an attractive hub of innovation and creativity.”

According to research from CBRE, Boston is the largest life sciences market in the U.S. and has continued a pace of recent rapid growth, with local lab space having doubled in the past three years alone. The area is home to leading research institutions, ensuring a strong pipeline of highly educated professionals for public and private organizations. Both established and start-up life sciences firms continue to drive demand for space in Boston, with approximately six million square feet of life sciences space needed in the market as of the fourth quarter 2021, according to CBRE’s research.

Newmark’s Boston-based Capital Markets Group represented ownership and procured the new partners on the transaction.

About CBRE Investment Management

CBRE Investment Management is a leading global real assets investment management firm with $141.9 billion in assets under management* as of December 31, 2021, operating in more than 30 offices and 20 countries around the world. Through its investor-operator culture, the firm seeks to deliver sustainable investment solutions across real assets categories, geographies, risk profiles and execution formats so that its clients, people and communities thrive.

CBRE Investment Management is an independently operated affiliate of CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 revenue). CBRE has more than 105,000 employees (excluding Turner & Townsend employees) serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE Investment Management harnesses CBRE’s data and market insights, investment sourcing and other resources for the benefit of its clients. For more information, please visit www.cbreim.com.

*Assets under management (AUM) refers to the fair market value of real assets-related investments with respect to which CBRE Investment Management provides, on a global basis, oversight, investment management services and other advice and which generally consist of investments in real assets; equity in funds and joint ventures; securities portfolios; operating companies and real assets-related loans. This AUM is intended principally to reflect the extent of CBRE Investment Management’s presence in the global real assets market, and its calculation of AUM may differ from the calculations of other asset managers and from its calculation of regulatory assets under management for purposes of certain regulatory filings.