
SharkNinja, currently located in Newton, has announced plans to move into a new headquarters being built for the company at Needham Crossing.
A major expansion of the Needham Crossing business park is on hold after Intrum Corp. filed a legal challenge of Normandy Real Estate Partners’ plans for an office, hotel and apartment complex on a 27-acre parcel.
Newton-based Intrum owns a three-story office building at 300 First Ave. that abuts the project site. In the lawsuit, it argues that Needham officials failed to consider negative impacts upon its property values. It specifically cites the planning board’s approval of a seven-story garage directly behind its property as “arbitrary, capricious and to the substantial damage and detriment of the plaintiff and the neighborhood.” It also claims the board “deliberately concentrated excess parking in the expanded garage” rather than spreading parking throughout the site, according to the complaint filed by attorneys Jason Manekas and Gary Lilienthal of Boston-based Bernkopf Goodman in Norfolk Superior Court. The total number of parking spaces on the site would increase from 2,734 to 3,642.
The lawsuit also claims the planning board failed to use hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds provided by the developer in an earlier phase of the project to mitigate traffic as intended. The first phase, approved in 2012, included the 280,892-square-foot office building developed for TripAdvisor’s new headquarters. Normandy sold the TripAdvisor property to an affiliate of U.S. Realty Advisors LLC for $133.2 million last June.
The lawsuit names Normandy and the members of the Needham planning board as defendants.
It challenges the special permit awarded in November for the following projects:
- Redevelopment of the 263,653-square-foot building at 77 A St. into 260,429 square feet of office and R&D space.
- Redevelopment of the 171,004-square-foot building at 189 B St. into 160,000 square feet of office and R&D space.
- Demolition of the 80,335-square-foot building at 156 B St. and replacement with a 91,000-square-foot hotel with 12,500 square feet of common area amenities and 19,000 square feet of retail space.
The 40B project would be built on a 5-acre parcel at the northern edge of the property.
Normandy Real Estate Partners acquired the property in 2014 for $54.5 million. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



