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Expansion of life sciences labs in Boston area slows; one Kendall Square building has sat mostly empty for months
By adamg on Sun, 02/25/2024 - 12:49pm
The Washington Post takes a look at what is increasingly stagnant demand for life-sciences lab space - even in Kendall Square - in the Boston area, which saw a huge increase in demand as companies rushed to develop Covid-19 drugs and vaccines.
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Did they succeed?
Did they succeed?
Would you
Even know what that word means?
The Old Kendall Square
Funny to hear talk of an empty building in Kendall Square, like it's such an unheard of thing. It's hard to imagine now, but I remember in the 70s when pretty much the entire of Kendall Square was a wasteland with nothing but old warehouses and a strange diner with a sign that said "closed" all the time, even when it was open. There was also a place called the Terminal Barbershop sitting in the middle of nothing. It was such a surreal sight that a local band called Pastiche wrote a song about it and put out a record of it. One decrepit building had a three line poem in large, block multicolored letters that took up a third of it's crumbling wall. Turns out it was part of a larger poem scattered on walls throughout Cambridge. The whole area had a very otherworldly feel to it. I kind of miss it.
The poem
https://multicians.org/thvv/wall-poem.html
Pull this change
Sweet and twenty
Reckless dust
(Forever burned in my brain forty years later.)
That link
Makes me miss the Internet.
Tenants?
The steady stream of lab space construction announcements seemed excessive and I had wondered who would occupy all of it. I guess the tenants are going to be crickets.
According to the article
The real estate firms don't seem to be too concerned about the vacancies and expect the market to bounce back within a few years.
If that's their actual outlook (and not just trying to spin the story), it explains why they keep building even if there's no current demand. They think having space available to rent in the future is worth a short term loss due to vacancies.
Now that we’ve cured Covid-19…
…why would we ever need lab/office space, ever again?
The relentless drive for short-term profits combined with the foolish pursuit of whatever seems “hot” at the moment evinces a careless disregard for the future of our built environment. Surely, this will end well for all of us!
Is the Red Line an asset to
Is the Red Line an asset to Kendall Square or a liability?