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A SUPPLEMENT TO BANKER & TRADESMAN TURNAROUND TIME
No Vertex? No Problem Early-Stage Firms Fill Void In Cambridgeport BY STEVE ADAMS BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
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ioMed Realty Trust faced a daunting assignment filling nearly 350,000 square feet in its three-building Cambridgeport R&D complex once Vertex Corp. decided to move to a build-to-suit headquarters in Boston’s Seaport District. The San Diego developer adopted a leasing strategy tailored to the crowded field of early-stage life science companies looking for space in East Cambridge, with over three-quarters of companies seeking 80,000 square feet or less. “It’s not Kendall Square, and that’s what I love about it,” said Bill Kane, senior vice president for BioMed’s Boston-area market. “Kendall Square gets a lot of attention from the global operators, but Cambridgeport still has the immediate adjacency to the MIT campus. The VC’s all love it because it’s not the place that Big Pharma is tackling.” Continued on Page B7 IN HOT WATER
Admirals Bank Plagued By Excessive Spending Institution’s Future Uncertain Amid Financial Losses BY BRAM BERKOWITZ BANKER & TRADESMAN STAFF
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ven before federal regulators got involved, it was no secret that Admirals Bank was struggling. The bank has not turned a profit since 2013 and it was the only bank in Massachusetts in 2016 to lose money. But while its outlook worsened, the bank racked up millions in expenses on legal fees, consulting, marketing and advertising and entertainment and travel. “They seemed to spend money on lavish things,” a former Admirals Bank employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told Banker & Tradesman. “The owners were reContinued on Page 8
COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
BAY STATE HOUSING MARKET
STRUGGLES TO KEEP UP WITH DEMAND Number Of Residents Surpasses Supply As Home Prices Soar
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BY SCOTT VAN VOORHIS | BANKER & TRADESMAN COLUMNIST
ome prices are already insane around here. And while it may be hard to imagine how they could get any crazier, it looks like we will be finding out soon enough. Massachusetts is gaining new jobs and new residents at about three to four times the rate it is building new homes, condos and apartments. So far this decade, Massachusetts has added 353,000 new jobs, nearly a quarter million new residents, but has granted permits for just 81,000 new housing units. That’s not even enough to keep rents and prices in check over the coming years, let alone start bringing them down to more reasonable levSCOTT VAN VOORHIS els. And the epicenter of our state’s housing crisis can be found in Greater Boston, which would need 44,000 new units tomorrow just to keep pace with current demand. At the current, anemic rate of new construction, that gap will push past the 90,000 mark by 2030. So reads the latest warning about our state’s troubled housing market issued by the Mas-
sachusetts Housing Partnership, which has been pushing for years for reforms in local zoning laws that would open the door to more badly needed homes and rentals of all types. MHP shared its findings with a group of key state lawmakers over the summer in a presentation whose title, if rather dry, gets right to the point, “Housing Supply in the Commonwealth.” Still, the latest numbers were even somewhat of a surprise to Clark Ziegler of MHP, especially the large and growing gap between the number of jobs being created, spun off by the red hot Massachusetts economy and the relatively thin stream of new residential construction coming online. “I think the magnitude of the difference was what was striking to me,” Ziegler says. “It is become increasingly unsustainable.” By unsustainable, Ziegler Continued on Page 3
CONTENTS
By The Numbers ������������������������������������������������������� 6
Classified Sections ������������������������������������������������� 11
Points ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
Residential ��������������������������������������������������������������� 7
CRE Insider ������������������������������������������������������������ B1
In Person ������������������������������������������������������������������ 5
Banking & Lending ��������������������������������������������������� 8
Records Section ������������������������������������������������������ C1