Nan Fung Life Science’s plan to convert 51 Sleeper St. in Boston’s Seaport District to life science space is spurring concern from local politicians reminiscent of a 2008 fight over a Boston University lab. Photo courtesy of Nan Fung Life Science

There’s seemingly a new lab project under construction on every street corner in Boston and Cambridge, with everyone and their brother looking to cash in on the life–sciences boom. 

But there are growing signs a backlash is brewing. 

Worse, it is a backlash that could very well wind up focusing not on substantive issues – like lab projects displacing plans for offices or even desperately-needed housing – but rather on popular fears and misconceptions about what really goes on behind hermetically-sealed doors. 

In what is likely a preview of coming attractions, the Boston City Council recently agreed to hold a hearing on new lab development. 

City Councilor Ed Flynn proposed the hearing, citing the need for residents to know the “types of testing that could be conducted in the laboratory … especially if it … can potentially impact public health and safety in the area.” 

In particular, Flynn has a bone to pick over a Sleeper Street building in the Seaport that a developer wants to convert into lab space that fast-growing residential and commercial area. 

Since it is already zoned for industrial uses, no public hearing is needed. 

 A Familiar Boogeyman 

Flynn has made it clear he also welcomes need lab development in general, noting the decent–paying jobs the industry brings.  

But the safety issue, while it should never be ignored, is for the most part, a boogeyman, distracting from other, far more significant issues. 

The hysteria that greeted Boston University’s rollout of a nearly $200 million Level 4 biohazard research complex on its South End medical campus in 2008 was a great example of public anxiety over scientific research that went off the rails. 

No amount of fact-based reassurance could convince opponents that a potential biohazard disaster was not looming around the next corner, not even an NIH-sponsored study that found “an event causing an infection of a community member might occur no more than once in 500 to 10,000 years,” according to the BU biohazard lab’s website. 

Given a simple trip to the grocery store now brings with it the risk of catching a deadly virus, I guess those odds don’t sound too bad now. 

Yet it took until 2017, nearly a decade, for the new lab complex to actually begin doing the research into highly contagious and deadly diseases – like Ebola – after years of lawsuits and harassment by city pols and environmental activists. 

The research complex all but faded from the news until the coronavirus hit and the team at the BU’s Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, like other researchers around the world, went into overdrive seeking solutions to the new virus. 

Wonder if any of the opponents who spent a decade fighting the BU lab have regrets now? 

Projects Popping Up Everywhere 

Of course, most life-sciences lab projects aren’t dealing with anything as sensitive as BU’s – there are only a handful of these hyper–secure Level 4 labs around the country. 

Life-sciences companies don’t typically make a lot of money coming up with vaccines, with rare genetic diseases or new approaches to age-old scourges like cancer drawing the big investment dollars. 

Maybe I’m missing something, but stories of deadly pathogens escaping from labs and wreaking havoc are the stuff of Hollywood not the life-sciences sector, now one of the Boston area’s largest employers. 

Let’s put the mass hypochondria aside and focus on some real issues, for there are important ones to discuss when it comes to fast-mounting number of lab projects being proposed. 

The rapid proliferation of proposals in Boston and its environs is truly astounding right now. 

And more than a few of these lab proposals involve either the scrapping of a previous plan for office space, or filling an office building emptied by the pandemic with research space. 

BioMed snapped up the former headquarters of John Hancock at 601 Congress St. in the Seaport late last year, while Oxford Properties has replaced plans for an office tower on Lincoln Street near South Station with a smaller building that will be focused on labs. 

Biomed is considering a similar play with 321 Harrison Ave., a new office mid-rise under construction in the South End near Ink Block, the apartment project that stands on the site of the former Boston Herald building. 

Meanwhile, a pair of warehouses near Dorchester’s Andrew Square that Amazon had been eyeing are now being pitched as lab space, while a major life sciences developer is reportedly eyeing the Watertown Mall. 

Legitimate Concerns Exist 

But while replacing offices with even lucrative lab space could be a winner for developers and commercial landlords, research and lab operations typically employ a lot of fewer people compared to the droves of workers that fill up a typical office tower. 

Scott Van Voorhis

And that has big implications for surrounding restaurant and retail businesses, which live and die based on lunch–hour foot traffic. 

There is also a potential impact on the housing market here, with lab developers now scooping up properties that very well could also be converted into residential space. 

On the other side of the ledger is the simple fact that the life sciences sector is now a core ingredient in the Greater Boston economy, akin to what tech is for the Bay Area. 

Clearly there’s a lot for city planners, elected officials and neighborhood residents to consider. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.