The Healey-Driscoll Administration and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) have launched BioBoost, a program intended to provide funding to expand biomanufacturing and medtech advanced manufacturing operations across Massachusetts. Some $60 million in funding requests came into the program, which has a $3.5-million budget.

Largest of the five grants awarded was $1.4 million to Woburn-based Terrestrial. The funding will support the buildout of what is reportedly the world’s first commercial-scale therapeutic microarray patch manufacturing headquarters. Other grants went to Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, RoslinCT, Holobiome and Theromics Inc.

“Expanding manufacturing capacity is essential to sustaining growth in Massachusetts’ life sciences ecosystem,” said Undersecretary of Business Strategies Zenobia Moochhala. “These investments will help companies move faster, create high-quality jobs, and build a more resilient production pipeline across the Commonwealth.”  

Since 2008, the MLSC has deployed more than $1.1 billion in Massachusetts through grants, loans, capital infrastructure investments, tax incentives and workforce development programs

The owners of Birkdale Village in Huntersville want to add office space, a hotel, apartments and expand the retail offerings. A development group made up of North American Properties, Jamestown and Nuveen Properties is hoping to get a zoning change that will allow them to change the current plan and build a $180 million expansion.

The Charlotte Business Journal reports the details include a 125-room hotel, 150 multifamily units, 122,300 square feet of office space and 26,715 square feet of retail space.

The office building, which includes ground-floor retail space, would be developed at the site of an existing Barnes & Noble store. The 150-unit multifamily building is being planned for the current site of Dick’s Sporting Goods at Birkdale Village. The hotel would be across from the office building.

Birkdale Village is currently 100% occupied and includes around 250,000 square feet of retail space, 50,000 square feet of office space and 320 apartments.

Gwinnett County is expanding its control over the Gwinnett Place Mall as it works to redevelop and resuscitate the aging property.

Courtesy of Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners

Gwinnett Place Mall in Gwinnett County that is set for a total redevelopment.

The Gwinnett County Commission voted Tuesday to spend $16.5M to acquire the Macy’s department store and furniture store at the mall, a property that includes parking lots and spans 23 acres.

The purchase is being conducted by the Gwinnett County Urban Redevelopment Agency, which earlier this year tapped CBRE to plan the property’s total redevelopment.

The purchase means that the county now controls a total of 76 acres of the former mall property, including the central 526K SF indoor mall portion that was previously used as the set for the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Gwinnett purchased the inline stores, food court and former Belk anchor for $23M in 2020 from Moonbeam Capital, whose previous ownership had become a frequent source of frustration for county officials for failing to initiate any redevelopment efforts of the now-defunct mall. 

But the purchase now means Gwinnett has more real estate to accomplish the transformation of the mall into its Global Village plan first unveiled in 2022. The vision calls for 3,800 new residential units, 50K SF of office space, 55K SF of retail and a 50K SF cultural center surrounding a 13-acre public park. 

“The acquisition of the Macy’s site marks a pivotal step forward in the redevelopment of Gwinnett Place Mall, setting the stage for Gwinnett County to establish a national — and possibly international — model for equitable and impactful transformation,” Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson said in a statement.

Remaining anchors Beauty Master and Mega Mart own their stores, and Charlotte developer Northwood Ravin owns the shuttered Sears store, which it plans to convert into an apartment tower.

The Macy’s is expected to remain open until early 2025, officials said. CBRE is expected to issue a request for proposals early next year for developers to tackle the redevelopment project.

Gwinnett officials are betting that the redevelopment of the mall would drive an economic boom in the county. A 2023 study by the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District, which includes the mall property and surrounding 5.6M SF of office space and 15.7M SF of industrial properties, warned that significant delays to the redevelopment could mean the county could lose the potential for millions of new dollars of public revenue and thousands of jobs.

“Gwinnett Place CID is already punching above its weight,” Gwinnett Place CID Joe Allen told Bisnow earlier this year, citing its estimated economic impact to the county. “By creating a new urban core at the old mall site, we could blow that $15.9B economic impact out of the water, elevate property values and spread a halo of benefits to surrounding areas in the county.”

Global biopharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca is investing $300 million in an 84,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Rockville, MD to launch its cell therapy platforms in the U.S. for critical cancer trials and future commercial supply. Located at 9950 Medical Center Dr., it is expected to become operational in 2026.

More than 150 new highly skilled jobs will be created to initially focus on manufacturing T-cell therapies to enable clinical trials to be conducted around the world. Over time, the site may expand its focus to support other disease areas.

The Rockville facility is located less than five miles from one of the company’s five global R&D centers and sits within the life sciences corridor in Maryland. The company recently signed a full-building lease in Gaithersburg.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said: “AstraZeneca and the State of Maryland share a deep commitment to innovation. It makes us the perfect pairing for this next-generation cell therapy facility. This significant investment in our life sciences sector will help maintain Maryland’s leadership in the industry and sharpen our competitive edge.”

Real estate services giant Savills is acquiring T3 Advisors, a specialist in life sciences tenant representation, in an effort to expand Savills’ expertise in that fast-growing sector. 

Founded in 2001 with offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Palo Alto, California, T3 will rebrand as T3 Advisors, A Savills Company. T3 founder and CEO Roy Hirshland will become a vice chairman at Savills and continue to lead T3 Advisors. The buyer didn’t disclose a price.

“The acquisition of T3 will further amplify the life science and technology industry advisory services that Savills can provide to clients on a global basis,” Savills Group CEO Mark Ridley said in a statement. “These are key growth sectors for us and are integral to our continued strategic expansion across North America.”

Though already in a growth mode, life sciences got a boost from the coronavirus pandemic, and the demand for space in life sciences hubs is still expanding, pushed by investment in the sector from private venture capital as well as federal sources like the National Institutes of Health.

Development in the sector is also brisk nationwide. San Diego State University is developing the 80-acre Mission Valley complex, which will include life sciences facilities. In Houston, the 37-acre TMC3 project will seek to gestate ideas from the Texas Medical Center into full-fledged companies. In Pittsburgh, a 1915-vintage Ford Motor plant is being reborn as The Assembly, a $330M biomedical research hub anchored by the University of Pittsburgh. 

Boston, San Francisco and San Diego remain the top U.S. clusters for life sciences, according to JLL, but other markets are emerging quickly, such as Charlotte, Seattle, Denver and Austin.

In New York, which is also a rising life sciences hub, CBRE reports that life sciences leasing has totaled 257.4K SF so far this year, up from 155.9K SF in all of 2020 and 72.4K SF in 2019.