Bill Kane
President of East Coast and United Kingdom Markets, BioMed Realty
Age: 54
Industry experience: 27 years
Blackstone-owned BioMed Realty is building one of Cambridge’s most notable new projects, the 585 Kendall tower leased to Takeda Pharmaceuticals, after engineering a complex deal with utility Eversource to relocate an electric substation that occupied part of its envisioned development site. In an interview with Banker & Tradesman, BioMed’s Bill Kane was quick to share credit with BioMed’s local senior vice president of development, Salvatore Zinno, who built consensus among neighborhood groups during a lengthy public process. San Diego-based BioMed owns 5.2 million square feet of lab and office buildings in Greater Boston, part of Kane’s territory which includes its East Coast and United Kingdom markets, and 17 million square feet of real estate overall.
Q: As BioMed sees some state agencies departing in 2025, what are the leasing plans for 1000 Washington St. in Boston’s South End?
A: We looked at the investment when we bought it in 2021 as a two-phased project. We started with 321 Harrison Ave., a 246,000-square-foot office building that was empty. The plan at that time was to convert to labs. Usually we are very selective in pursuing lab conversions. They require very specific attributes and proximity to demand drivers. That phase of the project proved to be very successful and we leased it to six tenants. In the next phase of the project, we are waiting for the tenants to run their courses at 1000 Washington. The plan has always been to pursue a change of use and we’ve done that successfully.
Next year there’s a lot of upgrades we need to do, and we can’t get access until the last tenant walks out. There’s a plan to improve the underlying structure and common areas. Originally the emphasis was on users that grow from our portfolio next door at 321 Harrison or one of our other properties. One of the reasons we made this investment to begin with is proximity to the neighboring health care institutions, and we are looking at a broad spectrum of uses. Now that the market has slowed considerably and we’re casting a wider net, there’s a number of users that have inquired about the building. We have to be careful not to deviate from our approved use, but medical office is definitely a very active part of the market. We’re eyes wide open on what green tech and clean tech and AI are presenting.
Q: Is there serious interest in the lab conversion of the former Manulife headquarters at 601 Congress St.?
A: That is a building that we purchased a few years ago to do office-to-lab conversion, and along the duration of our project, we have been watching the market change. There are very specific attributes in the types of tenants that are touring. What we learned during the course of time positioning this building is that smaller, well-capitalized, [venture capital]-backed tenants are the predominant activity we’re seeing in the market. We came up with the notion of building spec labs for establishing speed to market. We’re also seeing not just in Boston but in our six clusters in the U.S. and United Kingdom, is that small VC-backed companies are leaning toward second-generation or turnkey spaces. We wanted to communicate the scale and features in two words – Velocity Labs – as our way of standardizing what users are getting. Since then, it’s been a very slow market. I don’t think the Seaport market has seen a transaction occur for north of 12 months. But over the course of the last three months, we have had a good amount of tours by small and large users, and I think we’re going to have a few announcements in a very short time in that building.
Construction of the building core recently was completed at BioMed Realty’s 585 Kendall lab tower leased to Takeda Pharmaceuticals in East Cambridge. Photo courtesy of BioMed Realty
Q: How big is BioMed’s spec lab portfolio?
A: We’ve built out space labs in six buildings across our [U.S. and U.K.] portfolio in six new buildings totaling 350,000 square feet. We’re enthused by the activity we’re seeing.
Q: What are the next milestones in the 585 Kendall construction and what was key to finalizing the Eversource relocation?
A: We were talking about building a 600,000-square-foot lab building in an area where we have other facilities in close proximity. We like to build microclusters so tenants can ebb and flow, and that led to Takeda Pharmaceuticals leasing the whole building. We needed a certain footprint, and we controlled one parcel but we did not control the Eversource parcel. Our local head of development, Salvatore Zinno, effectively ran the process and convened community stakeholders, and people knew he was true to his word. As of now, we’re finalizing the large concrete core of 585 Kendall, and it’s starting to reach the penthouse level of the lab building. This is my favorite part of the project. A second tower crane is going to be visible from all parts of Boston and Cambridge, and raising structural steel, so you get to see the physicality of the building on a weekly basis.
Bill Kane’s Top Five Secrets
- I’m a self-declared Dunkin drinker that may have consumed a Starbucks coffee
- I’m the sole employee of a large hot sauce operation
- I’m a recovering Detroit Lions fan
- I interviewed with the CIA in college
- An international tax attorney cuts my hair
