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Watertown Mall, Once Slated for Lab Conversion, Trades as Pure-Play Retail
Locally based National Development paid $100.25 million to acquire Watertown Mall in Watertown, MA from Alexandria Real Estate Equities. The sale comes about four years after Alexandria paid $130 million for the shopping center and subsequently revealed plans to redevelop it with 500,000 square feet of lab and office space.
At that time, the Greater Boston lab space market was tight, with vacancy hovering near 0% as 2022 began, the Boston Business Journal reported. Today, vacancy stands at 27.7%, according to CBRE data cited by the Business Journal.
National Development plans to maintain the 260,867-square-foot Watertown Mall as-is for now, the Boston Globe reported. “We will continue to make improvements and operate it as a first-class shopping center,” CIO Andrew Gallinaro told the Globe. “It’s an extremely high-quality location and a great community. Over the longer term, there may be other avenues to explore. But for the time being, we’re very focused on operating as a first-class shopping center.”
- ◦Sale/Acquisition
