MathWorks To Add To Natick Presence, Soften BSX Exit
PHOTO/EMILY MICUCCI
The exterior of one of The MathWorks Inc. buildings in Natick.
For most local officials, hearing that the second-biggest commercial taxpayer in town intends to move away would be cause for great concern.
For Natick, the announcement that medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp. (BSX) was moving its headquarters to Marlborough came with the reassurance that the third biggest taxpayer — The MathWorks Inc. — was looking to buy the BSX headquarters.
The announcement comes nearly nine years after BSX bought the Route 9 property — the former home of Carling Brewery and later Prime Computer on Lake Cochituate — for $43.5 million.
Patrick Reffett, Natick's community development director, said the town is sad to lose BSX, which he called a “major, prominent business.” Reffett said Natick is still smarting from when BJ's Wholesale Club moved its headquarters to Westborough nearly two years ago.
But finding out that Mathworks was negotiating to purchase the BSX property helped ease any anxiety, he said.
“Having MathWorks occupy and make that a vibrant property is the best-case scenario,” Reffett said. “Most communities could only dream of having companies like MathWorks in them.”
Reffett said MathWorks has not applied for any local tax incentives related to the BSX property.
Boston Scientific's roughly 500,000-square-foot headquarters makes up more than 25 percent of the office market in Natick, said Garry Holmes, president of R.W. Holmes Realty, who is representing MathWorks in negotiations with BSX on the deal.
He said it makes sense for the company to expand in Natick, close to where many of its employees live.
“To be on such a torrid growth pace and have the opportunity come up for Boston Scientific was a nice situation for both parties,” Holmes said. “For now, this seems like a nice fit.”
Holmes said Natick continues to have one of the healthiest vacancy rates in the state. He said the town has averaged around 10 percent for a decade.
In Growth Mode
MathWorks makes numerical computing, modeling and simulation software known as Matlab and Simulink. It has about 1,800 employees in Natick, a number that is, coincidentally, nearly identical to Boston Scientific's presence in Central Massachusetts.
MathWorks released a statement from Jeanne O'Keefe, senior vice president and CFO: “MathWorks is fortunate to be in a growth mode, and is pleased at the prospect of expanding into such a renowned property, with such a rich local history and situated so close to our current campus. It will enable us to maintain the very high degree of collaboration among our staff that has contributed to our success to date.”
MathWorks has indeed grown. Though it is private, it has disclosed some revenue figures over the years — $100 million in 1998 and about $700 million in 2011. The company says half its sales are from outside the U.S.
It's also expanding its workforce, which numbers 2,600 worldwide.
“MathWorks continues to hire in relation to its business growth,” Len Dieterle, a MathWorks spokesman, wrote. “Based on our plans for 2013, we anticipate hiring an additional 400 people worldwide across our technical, marketing, finance, HR and administration groups.”
Dieterle couldn't offer many details on the company's plans, as the sale is not final.
Indeed, the company likely has some time; BSX has said it will not vacate the building for more than a year.
Dieterle said the purchase would be an expansion of MathWorks' steadily growing property portfolio in Natick, and that none of its other facilities would be consolidated.
The company has three buildings at its Apple Hill Drive campus, and will be opening a newly constructed fourth building early in 2013. The four properties combined are about 600,000 square feet, Dieterle said.
He said the company's growth is driving the need for the 500,000-square-foot BSX building.
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