Life sciences company Averion Inc. is relocating to 225 Turnpike Road in Southborough, where it will occupy nearly 64,000 square feet of space.
Exemplifying the extreme tightness of the core MetroWest office market, growing life sciences company Averion Inc. has agreed to move to Southborough from two facilities in Framingham. The firm will occupy nearly 64,000 square feet at 225 Turnpike Road in the Southborough Executive Park, confirmed Garry R. Holmes of R.W. Holmes Co.
“There are just not a lot options [for tenants] in Natick or Framingham right now,” Holmes said in explaining Averion’s defection westward, which was first reported last week on Banker & Tradesman’s Web site. Holmes, president of R.W. Holmes, negotiated the deal for the landlord, while Codman Co. principal Drew Nelson acted on behalf of Averion, which is expected to relocate to 225 Turnpike Road in September. The company plans to eventually occupy half of the first floor and all of the second and third floors of the 75,000-square-foot building. A portion of the space is being left behind by Amerifee, a financial services company departing to a build-to-suit headquarters in Framingham being constructed by National Development of Newton.
“It’s a great property,” Holmes said of Averion’s new home, citing such attributes as visibility from Route 9 and the stable ownership of Lincoln Ventures. Known as Boston Biostatistics Inc. until a name change in 2002, Averion is located at 4 California Ave. and 100 Pennsylvania Ave. in Framingham.
According to midyear figures compiled by R.W. Holmes, a Natick real estate services firm, that community and Framingham sport a 5.7 percent availability rate for office space compared to an overall market average of 23.9 percent. Much of the leasing velocity has come from within the submarket, Holmes explained, with longtime local tenant Genzyme Corp. also leasing 26,000 square feet of space in Framingham this year and Boston Scientific still active in its home base of Natick despite recent investment in other communities such as Marlborough.
In the latest example, Boston Scientific has extended its lease at Cochituate Place at 24 Prime Park Way, a 20-year-old office building located next to the firm’s headquarters on Route 9 in Natick. Boston Scientific was represented by Joseph P. Fallon of Trammell Crow Co., who was unavailable for comment by press deadline. Holmes, who is agent for the building, acknowledged that the deal has been signed with the landlord, LMF Cochituate Corp., although he declined to offer the length of the lease rental rate. The new deal is for 56,000 square feet, giving Boston Scientific occupancy of more than half of the 107,000-square-foot building and bringing occupancy to 100 percent.
