Photo courtesy of CBRE
One of the earliest buildings constructed as part of the Cambridge Crossing neighborhood, next to the Lechmere MBTA station, has traded hands.
An affiliate of Chicago-based investment firm Mesirow paid an affiliate of Newark, New Jersey investment management firm PGIM $218 million for the Twenty20 apartment tower Tuesday, according to a Middlesex South deed.
Maryland-based commercial real estate lender Walker & Dunlop provided the $139.38 million mortgage, according to a registry of deeds filing.
“We are pleased to invest in Twenty20, a well-located community in Cambridge, in the heart of Boston and one of the country’s most dynamic innovation corridors,” Alasdair Cripps, head of Mesirow’s Institutional Real Estate Direct arm, said in a statement. “Its strong fundamentals, proximity to leading educational and medical institutions, and excellent connectivity make it an ideal fit for our value-add platform.”
The Twenty20 high-rise delivered in June 2015 and sold to PGIM later that year for $197 million at just 17 percent leased, when the 45-acre former rail yard and industrial area was still known as NorthPoint and had just been brought back from the dead after an intervention by Boston developer HYM Investment Group.
Current developer DivcoWest bought the site later that year, rechristened it “Cambridge Crossing” and swiftly erected a succession of large lab towers housing major medical companies like Bristol Myers Squibb and Sanofi totaling over 2 million square feet. The development still has six unbuilt multifamily parcels and one unbuilt commercial parcel before it reaches its full, 4.5 million-square-foot buildout.
Twenty20 holds 355 apartments that average a larger-than-normal 807 square feet per unit, and boasts amenities like outdoor fitness stations, a rooftop terrace, a pet grooming station, a club room, a bike garage and nearly 200 covered parking spaces, plus the neighborhood’s 4-acre public park next door.
A CBRE team of Simon Butler, Biria St. John, John McLaughlin and Brian Bowler represented PGIM and procured Mesirow.
“We are pleased to have represented the seller in the sale of Twenty20, an asset they developed in partnership with the original developer in 2015,” Butler said in a statement. “The asset offers Mesirow an opportunity to execute their value-add program in one of the most dynamic employment markets in the country.”
