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Image courtesy of Sasaki
The Seaport District’s latest lab tower will start construction later this year, according to the commercial real estate brokerage charged with leasing the property.
JLL Boston said construction will begin on Boston Global Investors’ 10 World Trade tower, as the property at 401 Congress St. has been dubbed, in the fourth quarter. No anchor tenant has yet been announced.
The Sasaki-designed structure will rise 17 stories into the Seaport’s skies on a peculiar pair of parcels sandwiched between Congress Street, offramps from the Ted Williams Tunnel and the World Trade Center Avenue viaduct.
The building will bring 550,000 square feet of large-floorplate office and lab space to the neighborhood, plus a public plaza on an adjoining parcel between offramps, accessible via a bridge, and a 150-seat public auditorium. Amenities include a 15,000-square-foot penthouse fitness center with a 300-meter jogging track and juice bar.
“As the Seaport continues to grow, it is an attractive headquarters location for global companies drawn to Boston’s outstanding workforce, urban amenities and proximity to healthcare and higher education leaders,” BGI CEO John B. Hynes III said in a statement. “We maximized those natural strengths with a building designed to encourage innovation and collaboration, as well as create a unique selling point for companies looking to recruit and retain a diverse workforce. Our team took a very intentional approach to breaking down barriers between the building and the surrounding neighborhood with a stunning series of spaces in the public realm.”
10 World Trade is one of many that started out as an office structure, only to flip as the Greater Boston commercial real estate market was overtaken by the nationwide life sciences boom. The planned 15 Necco St. tower, once envisioned for GE’s headquarters, will instead bring over 316,000 square feet of office-lab space to market. A 646,000-square-foot component of WS Development’s Seaport Square project is currently under construction nearby for anchor tenant Foundation Medicine. And BioMed Realty is converting the 482,000-square-foot former John Hancock headquarters at 601 Congress St. to labs. Related Beal has also included a large lab component in its proposed, 1.1 million-square-foot 244-284 A St. project.
