Image courtesy of Healthpeak Properties

Cambridge officials’ debate on a lab construction moratorium in Alewife won’t derail developer Healthpeak’s plans for a 36-acre life science campus, executives said.

The nation’s third-largest life science landlord is assembling a “top-notch” team of architects, attorneys and public relations specialists as it prepares to redevelop the mix of commercial properties and parking lots off in the Quadrangle district over the next five to seven years.

“When we put this assemblage together, we had anticipated that there would be a two-year period before we actually would commence development on anything, and that would take a couple of years to work with the city of Cambridge, the neighborhood groups, development communities etc. to get to a good master plan that made sense,” CEO Thomas Herzog said in a conference call to discuss Healthpeak’s quarterly earnings.

In the meantime, the company continues to collect rent from existing tenants at a yield of 4.2 percent, Herzog said.

“This is a decade-long project where we’ve got a lot of operating assets that remain operating assets, and then we have certain parcels that are covered land plays that we develop one-by-one,” Herzog said.

In recent months, Healthpeak has spent $625 million in acquisitions of commercial properties in Alewife, giving it control over 36 acres off Concord Avenue. The portfolio includes 734,000 square feet of existing buildings, including the Raytheon BBN Technologies office campus which is leased for another five years.

In the wake of Healthpeak’s acquisitions, Cambridge City Councilor Patricia Nolan called for a moratorium on lab construction until 2024 or until a comprehensive zoning plan for the neighborhood is approved – something Cambridge officials have been unable to agree on for approximately four decades. The moratorium is under review by the council and planning board.

Healthpeak President Scott Brinker said the consultant team has begun meeting with local officials and community groups to discuss the timing and nature of the redevelopment.

 “We’ve always viewed this as a big mixed-use campus that’s going to have residential. It’s going to have some level of retail. We do think it should have a fair amount of lab. So I think a big part of the initial interactions here with the local stakeholders is just to make sure they know exactly what we had in mind, which frankly some of the local papers didn’t pick up quite accurately,” Brinker said, without giving specifics.

Executives had little to say about the plans for redevelopment of the 9-acre Muzi Ford dealership property in Needham, where Healthpeak has a 37.5 percent joint venture interest with Bulfinch Cos. The project could span “several hundred thousand square feet,” Brinker said, including lab, R&D and medical office uses.