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Landmark Center phase III/Image courtesy of Elkus Manfredi Architects
The latest proposals for nearly 800,000 square feet of life science development in the Fenway are designed to meet the city of Boston’s goal of weaning commercial development off reliance on fossil fuels.
A new 550,000-square-foot office-lab building on a portion of the historic Landmark Center property will be designed to receive 96 percent of its heating from electricity, reducing overall energy consumption by 51 percent through the use of heat recovery chillers. The project is a joint venture by Alexandria Real Estate Equities and Samuels & Assoc.
And preliminary designs for a 247,000-square-foot life science building at 109 Brookline Ave. include heat recovery chillers and air-to-water heat pumps, part of a strategy to prioritize electricity over natural gas for heating and cooling.
The Alexandria-Samuels project would update the master plan for the Landmark Center property, where a lab tower under construction at 201 Brookline Ave. already has potential tenant commitments for 84 percent of the building, Alexandria executives said last week.
In a project notification form with the Boston Planning & Development Agency, developers said the next building designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects is designed to attain net zero energy standards through the use of heat recovery chillers and air source heat pumps. The building would replace an above-ground garage with 550,000 square feet of office-lab space, and a 50,000-square-foot Star Market would anchor the ground floor.
As the third phase of the Landmark Center makeover, the project “represents the capstone of the overall redevelopment plan that will continue to transform the historic building project into the fabric of the surrounding urban village,” developers stated.
At 109 Brookline Ave., IQHQ Inc. proposes demolishing a vacant 3-story building and construct a 10-story office-lab building and 230 below-grade parking spaces. The project team includes Gensler, landscape architect Mikyoung Kim Design and sustainability consultant BR+A Consulting Engineers.
IQHQ acquired the site in February 2020 for $270 million for its second lab project in the Fenway neighborhood. The firm also is partnering with Meredith Management on the imminent Fenway Center project to be built on a Massachusetts Turnpike air rights parcel.
