Image courtesy of Bulfinch/Needham Planning Board
Citing the local lab construction glut, developer Bulfinch is seeking to shelve plans to redevelop a Needham car dealership as a 500,000-square-foot life science complex.
The Boston-based company now is considering a mix of alternative uses including multifamily housing, medical offices and a hotel.
“There haven’t been any corporate headquarters type tenants in the market of recent that we’ve been able to court,” Bulfinch President Robert Schlager told the Needham Planning Board at its meeting last week. “There hasn’t been much interest at all. The life science has pretty much dried up pretty much across the entire United States, not just in Massachusetts.”
The Needham Planning Board approved Bulfinch’s proposal for the life science project in December 2022. The project would have included a pair of connected lab buildings and a 5-story parking garage near the corner of Highland Avenue and Gould Street.
Life science leasing plummeted in 2023 just as a surge of speculative lab projects were breaking ground in Greater Boston. The local lab vacancy hit 25 percent in the first quarter, according to a recent CBRE research report.
The 557 Highland Ave. development site, which Bulfinch acquired from the Muzi Ford dealership in 2022, spans 9.3 acres near a Route 128 cloverleaf interchange.
Bulfinch is now considering changing the life science to medical offices, and looking at other uses including multifamily housing, senior housing and a hotel, executives said during a presentation. The parking garage could be eliminated in favor of a central parking courtyard.
Responding to comments from Planning Board Chair Artie Crocker seeking inclusion of homeownership units, Schlager pointed to the challenging financial climate.
“With interest rates at 6.5 to 7 percent, I would suggest there’s probably not a lot of interest in ownership at this time. But by the time the project is built, interest rates could be materially different,” Schlager said.
Private shuttle buses to the MBTA commuter rail would still be part of the revised plans, Schlager added.
The changes require approval of another zoning change by Needham Town Meeting. Crocker encouraged developers to meet with neighbors before finalizing the proposal.
Needham Town Meeting rezoned the property in 2021 for mixed-use development.
Developers in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville have taken a second look at life science plans in favor of a switch to housing amid the lingering lab glut.
HRP is seeking approval to start its redevelopment of the former Boston Edison power plant property in South Boston with a pair of apartment buildings.
Asana Partners is considering a multifamily project at a block of Davis Square retail properties where it previously proposed a life science project.
And Boylston Properties is seeking approval for a 236-unit apartment tower on a West Cambridge property it initially eyed for a lab complex.
