Blackstone Real Estate has announced that Blackstone Property Partners Life Sciences (BPPLS) will acquire a 2.3 million square foot portfolio of lab office buildings. The properties will be purchased from a Brookfield Asset Management real estate fund for $3.45 billion.
Roughly 90% of the new portfolio is concentrated in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Completion of the acquisition will make Blackstone the single largest life science office owner in Cambridge. BPPLS already owns BioMed Realty, Blackstone’s life science real estate portfolio company which will have an enterprise value of approximately $20 billion.
According to a press release announcing the acquisition, Cambridge is one of the fastest growing lab office submarkets in the United States due to its proximity to globally ranked universities and the largest cluster of pharmaceutical companies in the US.
“This transaction illustrates Blackstone’s continued conviction in the life sciences space both broadly, and within real estate, investing in best-in-class assets located adjacent to top-tier research and education institutions,” said Nadeem Meghji, head of Real Estate Americas at Blackstone. “We look forward to continuing to grow the platform with the help of BioMed Realty, our world-class life science office platform, with the goal of delivering value to our long-term investors.”
The transaction is expected to close in Q1 of 2021, subject to customary conditions.