66 Galen St.
Watertown, MA – A 1.3 acre development site located in the heart of Watertown Square has been acquired by Galen Street Development, LLC for a record $7 million. The deal for 66 Galen St. was brokered by Cambridge-based Associated Brokerage Group’s Bernard Gibbons, who represented the seller, Empire Management.
The site represented the highest price per square foot paid for a single parcel of land to date in the red-hot Watertown market.
Watertown is in the midst of residential and commercial real estate boom, adding 835 housing units since 2013, with another 800 either under construction or approved. The $400 million mixed-use redevelopment of Arsenal Yards by Boylston Properties includes 250,000sf of restaurant and retail space, 300 apartments, 200,000sf of office/lab space, and a 150 room hotel.
It is also quickly becoming a preferred location for biotech companies. With virtually no life science space in available in Cambridge and with rents approaching $100 per square foot for new construction, Watertown is positioning itself as a lower-cost alternative for biotech firms.
Lab inventory in Watertown has grown by 56% over the past decade, and is now home to 23 life sciences companies employing about 1,500 people, and Cambridge Science recently opened an incubator space just off Arsenal St. In 2018, Boylston Properties completed LINX, an 185,000sf biotech lab, which is now fully leased, and recently signed SQZ Biotech to a 64,000 square-foot lease at Arsenal Yards.
