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Click on the interactive map of Crosby Drive to the left.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Bedford is quietly collecting tech tenants along Crosby Drive
By Christopher Calnan
Interactive map of Bedford's Crosby Drive tech hub
When iRobot Corp. moved its headquarters from Burlington to Bedford in April it became the latest tech company to migrate from the tech hotbeds of Waltham and Burlington to the cheaper rents and more abundant space available on Bedford’s Crosby Drive.
Tucked into a corner of Bedford east of Route 3, and a couple miles north of the Burlington Mall, Crosby Drive doesn’t feature the flash and ease of access associated with the shiny steel and tinted glass office complexes dotting Route 128. But it also doesn’t feature the high rents found in those locales, local tech executives said.
In February, Polaroid Corp. spinout Zink Imaging Inc. relocated to the Bedford Business Park from Waltham when Polaroid closed its Waltham campus. Last year, directory assistance service provider Jingle Networks Inc. relocated from Burlington to the Crosby Corporate Center, which was built in the late 1990s.
The activity is being attributed to both Crosby Drive’s access to Route 3, which leads to Route 128 and Interstate 495, and rents that track about 30 percent lower than those in Waltham.
And, it’s turning Bedford into what Data Intensity Inc. CEO Kevin Kennefick calls part of a “high-tech alley,” which includes neighboring Burlington and longtime tech hotspot Waltham.
The three-quarters-of-a-mile-long Crosby Drive is dominated by the Crosby Corporate Center and the Bedford Business Park. Crosby Corporate Center is managed by New York-based RREEF Americas, a real estate division of Deutsche Bank, and Bedford Business Park is run by Boston-based Boston Properties Inc. (NYSE: BXP).
The square-foot costs of office space along Crosby Drive range between $18.50 to $26 compared with $28 to $45 in Waltham, and $27 to $35 in Burlington, said Rich Reggerio, a senior director of commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the Crosby Corporate Center’s local agent.
The center, which was built in two phases ending in 1968 and then 1998, now includes nine buildings that have typically housed tech companies, he said.
Data Intensity, a managed service provider founded in 2000, moved from Waltham to the Crosby Corporate Center in November 2007 to keep its monthly rent payment level while growing operating space from 15,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet, Kennefick said.
IRobot (Nasdaq: IRBT) moved into a 158,000-square-foot space at the Bedford Business Park with access to an adjacent state-owned property where the company can test its products. Boston Properties bought the 475,978-square-foot office park in 1976 and renovated it as recently as 2001.
But the Crosby Drive locations are not along Route 128, so tenants lose out on the chance for high-profile logos on their buildings. They’re also further from the Massachusetts Turnpike compared to Waltham.
Meanwhile, two new office parks, the TradeCenter 128 in Woburn and the Westwood Station, southwest of Boston — both adjacent to Route 128 — are offering tech companies alternatives. TradeCenter 128’s vice president of leasing, Eric Anderson, said he’s attempting to lure companies away from pricier Waltham and Cambridge to his 400,000-square-foot building with lower rental rates. TradeCenter 128, which is 30 percent leased, has signed 11 tenants paying $28 to $34 per square foot. However, it still hasn’t attracted its first technology tenant, Anderson said.
“Tech is definitely one of those sectors we’re focusing on,” he said.
In Bedford, town manager Richard Reed said the widening of Route 3 and its access ramp to Crosby Drive three years ago, and state and town tax breaks, have made the area more attractive to prospective tenants. Yet he wants a mix of tenants, both tech and nontech, rather than a dominance of software companies, to avoid a recurrence of the vacancies that followed the dot-com bust in 2001.
The Crosby Corporate Center is now about 28 percent vacant, but Reggerio expects that figure to drop to 10 percent by the first quarter of 2009.
Officials at two former Burlington-based companies, TimeTrade Systems Inc. and Jingle Networks, said they saved rent or got more space by moving to Crosby Drive last year.
Anthony Gardner, CFO of iRacing.com Motorsport Simulations LLC, which moved into 34 Crosby Drive 14 months ago, said the additional technology companies have had a symbiotic effect without creating overcrowding.
“It’s laid back,” he said, “but you still have plenty of companies in the area we do business with.”
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