It’s a dollar amount worth emphasizing: $500 million.
That’s how much King Street Properties, a Boston development firm co-owned by Stephen D. Lynch, plans to spend on a life sciences biomanufacturing facility in Devens.
That level of investment is hardly ever seen outside I-495, but Devens has been increasingly viewed as an attractive option for companies looking for lots of room within driving distance along Route 2 to the Boston area. Count Lynch and his team as among the big believers in such potential on the outskirts of one of the regions benefiting most from a life sciences boom.
If spillover growth out in places like Devens and Worcester takes off, it’ll be King Street Properties, which has already remade the former MetroWest Daily News building in Framingham for life sciences as part of more than $2 billion it has invested outside of Kendall Square since 2010, counted as among the first to take risk-taking investment to an entirely other level.
What do you think the future holds for Central Mass.? “Central Massachusetts has an opportunity to capitalize on the need for the kind of factory-of-the-future space that we are building in Devens. These uses go beyond life science and include clean energy-related uses and precision manufacturing. Winning these kinds of uses requires a well-trained work force and nimble zoning.”
An industry giant: “I am taller than I look on Zoom.”
