Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Boston's Fan Pier gets a $50M funding from I-Cubed

By Rodney H. Brown

The section of South Boston’s planned Innovation District known as Fan Pier has won approval for $50 million from a state-run public-private program for development, part of which will be the new 1.1 million square foot headquarters for Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. Vertex signed a 15-year lease for the space in May, becoming the largest commercial lease in the history of Boston.

A release from the office of Lieutenant Gov. Timothy Murray stated that the Innovative Infrastructure Investment (I-Cubed) program will dole out the $50 million to “support public infrastructure improvements at Fan Pier – primarily streets, sidewalks, and public parks – as well as to “support the construction of Fan Pier’s second and third office buildings and the future home to the 1.1 million square foot global headquarters for Vertex Pharmaceuticals.” Already on the site is One Fan Pier, which is the home of the MassChallenge startup accelerator and business plan contest.

According to the release, the construction will support 2,000 construction jobs and when it is finished, the Fan Pier region will be able to support 1,800 new jobs. The I-Cubed program brought together the state, the City of Boston and the owner and developer of the space, The Fallon Company. The money in the program comes from bonds, according to state officials.

Fan Pier is a 21-acre site which, when complete, will have a hotel, condominiums, additional offices, retail and restaurants, the release stated.

Last month, Vertex (Nasdaq: VRTX) and its partner, the Johnson & Johnson division Janssen Pharmaceutica N.V., won regulatory approval in the European Union for Vertex’s hepatitis C drug, known in the U.S. as Incivek. The drug was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May and brought in revenue of $75 million in the first five weeks on the market.