The Boston Redevelopment Authority has approved the development of the proposed Blackfan Research Center after more than two years of planning and discussions with Cambridge developer Lyme Properties.
After more than two years of discussion, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved plans for the proposed Blackfan Research Center last week, allowing construction of the 575,000-square-foot biomedical research building to begin. The structure, to be built in the Longwood Medical area, is expected to create about 400 construction jobs and 700 permanent jobs.
“This is a very important step for the project,” said Scott Dumont of Lyme Properties in Cambridge, the project developer. “It’s been two years of hard work and planning.”
Construction will begin next summer with completion slated for the end of 2006.
The Blackfan Research Center, planned for a site that straddles the Judge Baker Children’s Center on land owned by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center between Blackfan Street and Longwood Avenue, will join new Longwood neighbors – the Harvard Institutes of Medicine, the Merck Research Laboratories and the Children’s Hospital Research building – that are now under construction.
“This is a great example of Boston as a leader in the biomedical research arena. It’s also fitting that it comes after the city’s $120 million grant for the National Bio-Containment Lab,” said Meredith Baumann, spokeswoman for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “It adds to Boston’s growing cache as an industry leader – on a number of levels, this is an exciting piece of news for the city.”
Baumann said the BRA reviewed the project for two years because of its size and impact on the surrounding Longwood-area communities. But after dozens of meetings with the developer, Baumann said, the authority’s concerns about height, density and traffic were addressed and mitigated significantly. Based on authority guidelines, developers actually surpassed requirements, according to Baumann.
Meeting Guidelines
Before work on Blackfan begins, Lyme Properties must first demolish the Judge Baker Children’s Center, which now sits on the site. The children’s center will move its offices to Mission Hill over the summer, according to Dumont.
Completion of the project will bring biomedical research space along with retail establishments and restaurants into the Longwood Medical area.
Approval of the project by the BRA comes after the authority’s adoption of its Longwood Medical and Academic Area Interim Guidelines, an outline of development requirements on transportation, housing, urban design and workforce development. The guidelines, instituted to ensure that the needs and quality-of-life issues of the surrounding community are preserved, created several requirements for Blackfan developers.
The developers will provide an onsite work force development training facility available to community groups in the Mission Hill and Fenway neighborhoods, a job center that will focus on career opportunities in the new facility. The developers also will be required to produce a Workforce Development Plan, valued at $10,000, and will make an additional $85,000 contribution to workforce development programs. Lyme also designed a public concourse that cuts through the building, offering pedestrians a walkway option away from weather and traffic.
Additional public benefits include a $2.9 million linkage payment to the Neighborhood Housing Trust and a $684,000 Neighborhood Jobs Trust payment. The developer also has agreed to make several roadway improvements required by the BRA.
Lyme purchased the property on Blackfan Circle from the Judge Baker Children’s Center in 2001. To develop an adjoining site on Binney Street, which fits within the overall development envelope of Beth Israel Deaconess’ previously approved institutional master plan, Beth Israel is working with Lyme to build a second new research building with an additional 440,000 square feet of research space. To facilitate the process, Beth Israel sold a parcel of land to Lyme and helped prepare preliminary designs for the new research buildings and also made filings with the BRA.
The Blackfan Research Center is the latest addition to the city’s biotechnology sector. Each year, Boston receives $1 billion in National Institute of Health grant money each year, which creates more than 17,000 jobs in research and development alone, according to the BRA.
Lyme Properties focuses on the acquisition, development and rental of laboratory space for the life science, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, research and teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of CareGroup Healthcare System. Beth Israel Deaconess is one of the largest recipients of National Institutes of Health research funding among independent U.S. teaching hospitals.
Kristie DiSalvo may be reached at kdisalvo@thewarrengroup.com.
