Liberty Mutual renews Fourth of July sponsorship
Liberty Mutual Group, the Boston insurance company, said today it is renewing its sponsorship of the Boston Pops Fourth of July Concert on the Esplanade for another three years.
The sponsorship renewal agreement with Boston 4 Productions, the company that produces the event, totals $7 million and covers Fourth of July Concerts from 2010 through 2012, said the company, which added that 2012 also happens to Liberty Mutual's 100th anniversary.
Liberty Mutual began sponsoring the event in 2005; its initial five-year sponsorship ends after this year's concert, a company spokesman said.
"This event has helped define our great city for decades while becoming one of the nation's biggest Independence Day parties," Edmund F. Kelly, Liberty Mutual Group chairman, president, and chief executive, said in a statement. "I can't think of a better way to celebrate America's birthday, whether you join us at the Esplanade, or enjoy the festivities on television."
This year's concert will feature Pops conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, joined by Grammy Award winner Neil Diamond, whose hits include Red Sox fan favorite, "Sweet Caroline."
A Globe story from 2004 noted that Liberty Mutual stepped in bail out Boston's Fourth of July celebration on the Esplanade after there was a possibility the event could be scrubbed because of insufficient funding.
Liberty Mutual's decision ended a search for a new sponsor by David Mugar, the local philanthropist who founded the celebration with Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler in 1974. Fidelity Investments was a previous sponsor. For many years, Mugar paid for the show himself, the Globe story noted. But production costs had increased so much that he said he could no longer afford the expense.
As for tomorrow's Fourth of July celebration, its emcee is Craig Ferguson of the CBS "Late, Late Show," and the celebration is scheduled to air locally on WBZ-TV from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., followed by a national CBS broadcast from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Liberty Mutual said in its press release.
"For those watching the celebration from home, Liberty Mutual will bring the event's 21-minute fireworks grand finale commercial-free to millions of viewers across the nation," the release added.
Back Bay website aims to woo tourists, locals
The Back Bay Association said it has just launched a new website that is part of a larger marketing campaign that promotes one of Boston's most famous neighborhoods as the ideal destination for folks interested in "Culture, Cuisine, Couture, and Commerce."
The new site, www.VisitBostonBackBay.com, is "a fully interactive portal to the products, services, restaurants, galleries, and attractions the Back Bay has to offer," the association said in a press release.
Aimed at local, regional, national, and international consumers, the website features interactive brand listings of local businesses, videos of neighborhood attractions, virtual walking tours, maps, and events; it also includes information about parking and local history, the association said.
The Back Bay Association represents the neighborhood's local businesses, merchants, restaurants, hotels, property owners, and companies as well as schools and churches.
“The launch of this new website marks a major expansion of the promotional capabilities of the Back Bay,” association president Meg Mainzer-Cohen said in a statement. “VisitBostonBackBay.com draws together all the world-class brands and attractions that make The Back Bay the ultimate consumer destination.”
New Cadillacs are coming to Woburn
For Cadillac buffs, next Thursday could be a day of high excitement. That's when the luxury brand has scheduled a stop on its "Sneak Peak Tour" for R.C. Olsen Cadillac in Woburn.
From 5 p.m. until 8 p.m Thursday., as potential customers munch on hors d'oeuvres and finger foods, the Olsen showroom will showcase two new 2010 models, the SRX Crossover and the CTS Sport Wagon, a variation of the popular CTS sedan.
For the last few years, the crossover, which combines features from the sport utility vehicle and a regular car, has been one of the hottest of vehicular genres for many automotive brands, said Stephen DeSisto, general sales manager at Olsen Cadillac.
Cadillac's SRX Crossover made its debut earlier in the decade, and the 2010 model is widely anticipated because it represents the SRX's second generation, DeSisto said.
"It's a real special car," he said. "I haven't seen one myself. They've been keeping it under wraps a little bit. Hopefully, there will be a lot interest in it among Cadillac buyers - and among Lexus buyers and every-other-kind-of buyer as well."
The auto industry has been hard hit by the recession - General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC recently filed for bankruptcy protection, and they are expected to close more than 3,000 dealerships nationwide, including dozens in Massachusetts, as they restructure.
But things seem to improving slightly - a headline in yesterday's Wall Street Journal said, "Car makers see end to sales slide." That could mean good timing for this year's crop of new models and for Olsen Cadillac, whose website proclaims, "We're here to stay!"
The "Sneak Peak Tour" next Thursday will give potential customers an opportunity to "see and feel" the SRX Crossover and the CTS Sport Wagon, DeSisto said; customers will then have a chance to pre-order vehicles that will become available later this summer.
The photo that appears with this post was taken from Cadillac's website.
Summer program to help troubled youth is underway
Citizens Bank and the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston said that their Summer Enrichment Series is underway in partnership with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.
The goal of the series is to help curb youth violence, Citizens Bank said.
"Funded with a total of $400,000 from the Citizens Bank Foundation, the Summer Enrichment Series was launched in 2007 in response to Mayor Menino’s call to action," Citizens said in a press release. "This year’s program is expected to provide summer employment and programming to nearly 1,000 local youth."
Citizens Bank Massachusetts president Robert E. Smyth said in a statement, “We are deeply committed to supporting the neighborhoods where our customers and colleagues live and work and enriching the lives of the future generation and keeping them safe from harm are small ways to show our support.”
Reading, and writing ... and Warcraft III?
In the groves of academe where chalky pedagogues wear out bad tweed jackets and write windy dissertations on such subjects as Sanskrit history and the importance of the oboe, titles can be a bit of challenge: What, for example, do you call digital artists and multimedia types who are brought in to instruct students in the art of creating and developing interactive media games?
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, or WPI, a visiting game designer and digital artist will be called "professors of practice," a rather airy job description that would seem to cover a lot of ground, both online and off.
In any event, WPI said in a press release: "Brian Moriarty, an award-winning game designer, creative director, and multimedia producer, and Britton Snyder, a digital artist whose work has appeared in such best-selling games as Warcraft III, Diablo II, and WALL-E will join WPI's groundbreaking Interactive Media and Game Development (IMGD) program this fall as professors of practice. Launched in 2005, the IMGD program was the first in the nation to blend the artistic and technical aspects of game creation."
The press release included a statement from Mark Claypool, professor of computer science and director of the IMGD program.
"Brian and Britt bring a wealth of knowledge to WPI," Claypool said. "Here, they will be able to teach aspiring game designers and artists how the game industry works and what is required to ship profitable and fun games. Their practical, industry-tested insights will complement the solid education students in our program receive in the principles of developing games and other interactive media."
Dell Mini 10 to include Skyhook location features
Dell Mini 10 Netbook computers about to go on sale will include location and positioning services from Skyhook Wireless, Boston-based Skyhook Wireless said.
Skyhook Wireless offers XPS, a hybrid positioning system that uses both GPS and cell-tower triangulation to pinpoint a device's location.
Thanks to XPS, Dell Mini 10 users will be able to get turn-by-turn driving directions, locate the nearest Starbucks or Thai restaurant, display local weather or news, or find friends who are nearby, Skyhook Wireless said.
Skyhook Wireless said it is already powering location features on Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices.
The photo that appears with this post was taken from Dell's website.
Akamai provides video support for iPhone, iTouch
Akamai Technologies Inc. announced variable bit rate streaming support for live and high quality video content on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPod touch products.
With the motto of "Powering a better Internet," Cambridge-based Akamai specializes in technology that aims to provide speedy and rich Web content delivery.
"Variable bit rate streaming was a key feature delivered in the recent iPhone 3.0 update and this new capability expands Akamai's ability to provide consumers with the highest quality video streaming experience on their iPhone or iPod touch," said an Akamai press release, which added: "Akamai is also announcing the launch of the iPhone 3.0 Video Showcase - iphone.akamai.com - to demonstrate this new solution. Content owners and publishers including Canadian Broadcasting Corp, Discovery, FOX News, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, MTV, NPR, Turner Sports, and USA TODAY are participating in the showcase site."
The image of iPhones that appears with this post was taken from Apple Inc.'s website.
Plant disease hits eastern US veggies early, hard
(File photo: Joanne Rathe/Globe staff)
CONCORD, N.H. - Tomato plants have been removed from stores in half a dozen states as a destructive and infectious plant disease makes its earliest and most widespread appearance ever in the eastern United States.
Late blight - the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s - occurs sporadically in the Northeast, but this year's outbreak is more severe for two reasons: infected plants have been widely distributed by big-box retail stores and rainy weather has hastened the spores' airborne spread.
The disease, which is not harmful to humans, is extremely contagious and experts say it most likely spread on garden center shelves to plants not involved in the initial infection. It also can spread once plants reach their final destination, putting tomato and potato plants in both home gardens and commercial fields at risk.
Meg McGrath, professor of plant pathology at Cornell University, calls late blight "worse than the Bubonic Plague for plants."
Saucony wins vendor award
Saucony, a global athletic footwear and apparel brand based in Lexington, said it was named the 2009 Fleet Feet Sports Footwear Vendor of the Year.
"This award recognizes a footwear manufacturer for providing excellent product, support, and services to Fleet Feet Sports stores," Saucony said in a press release.
Fleet Feet Sports is a chain of footwear stores with its corporate headquarters in North Carolina.
Saucony Inc. is a subsidiary of Collective Brands Inc., a Kansas-based footwear specialty retailer, and a division of the Stride Rite Corp., a Lexington-based brand perhaps best known for its namesake children's shoes and Keds sneakers.
The photos that appear with this post were taken from Saucony's website.
Today in Globe Business
Air base partner avoids closure
The agency charged with overseeing one of the largest developments in Massachusetts, the conversion of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, narrowly avoided closing down thanks to a $250,000 cash infusion from its corporate partner yesterday.
The South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., made up of officials from Abington, Rockland, and Weymouth, said the funds, from Miami developer LNR Property Corp., will allow it to operate through September. The agency would have closed “within a week’’ without additional funding from LNR, said its chief executive, Kevin Donovan.
The emergency funding is a stark example of the many struggles Tri-Town and LNR have had obtaining 900 acres of the old Navy station and converting it into a minicity known as SouthField. Under the arrangement, LNR would build more than 2,800 housing units, a golf course, a sports complex, and 2 million feet of commercial space.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Car insurance rates 8 percent, state says
The cost of auto insurance in Massachusetts has fallen since the state stopped setting rates a little more than a year ago, the Division of Insurance said yesterday.
According to a state study, auto insurance rates dropped 8.2 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, compared with a 5.2 percent decline from 2006 to 2007. The state allowed insurance companies to start setting their own rates on April 1, 2008, under what officials called a “managed competition’’ plan. Previous to that, auto insurance had been highly regulated.
Since the regulations were relaxed, nine auto insurers have entered the Massachusetts market, including two of the nation’s largest - Geico and Progressive Insurance.
To read the full story, please click here.
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BOSTON CAPITAL: Biting hands that feed
Biotech companies fight with each other over the commercial rights to ideas and technology all the time. Patent lawsuits are as much a part of the business as lab work and clinical trials.
But those companies rarely go to court against big universities or scientific institutions, the source of talent and so many initial discoveries for the biotech industry. They don’t compete directly and, besides, do you really want to risk biting the hand that feeds you?
That’s partly why a lawsuit filed last week in Suffolk Superior Court is so extraordinary. The case involves a cast of world-renowned scientists and institutions in a dispute over key intellectual property rights in an emerging field that could change biotechnology, and possibly create vast fortunes.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Gas retailers face slow July Fourth
ACTON - Coffee in hand, Jeff Bursaw eyes the live feed on the flatscreen monitor at a rolltop desk inside his gas station. A blue bar ticks across the gray background, highlighting the constantly-shifting prices of crude oil, gasoline, and home heating oil as traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange bid the commodities up and down.
He does this every day, all day to make sure what he’s charging per gallon at Bursaw Gas & Oil in Acton not only stays competitive with, but is cheaper than, prices at the Mobil station down the street. In a span of 75 minutes on a recent day, the market swung up 5 cents and down 2.
“You can get up, go get a cup of water and everything is different,’’ Bursaw explains of his steady monitoring.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Two suitors for Globe join forces to submit bid
Former advertising executive Jack Connors and private equity investor Stephen Pagliuca have joined forces to prepare for a potential bid to buy The Boston Globe, according to people briefed on the sales process.
This week the two got approval from the Globe’s owner, The New York Times Co., to team up for a potential bid, the sources said. Connors and Pagliuca had been weighing separate bids for New England’s largest daily. Nondisclosure agreements had stipulated bidders could not work together, but the two sought permission to collaborate.
As that team and at least one rival local group craft preliminary bids, due Wednesday, the Times Co. has moved to make a sale more palatable by asking would-be buyers to assume only a portion of the Globe’s pension liability, a major concern to prospective owners, the sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sales process.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Talbots completes sale of J. Jill
(File photo: Wiqan Ang for The Boston Globe)
Talbots Inc., the Hingham apparel retailer perhaps best known for classically styled women's clothing, said that it has completed the sale of its J. Jill brand to an affiliate of a San Francisco based private-equity firm.
Talbot announced in June that it would sell the women's casual clothing business to focus on rejuvenating its core business. To read a Globe story about that announcement, please click here.
An affiliate of Golden Gate Capital paid $75 million cash, less an $8.1 million adjustment based on the estimated closing date, as part of the agreement. Talbots had bought the brand in 2006 for $517 million.
The sale included 205 J. Jill brand stores, a New Hampshire distribution facility, intellectual property, accounts receivable, and inventory related to the transferred stores, along with certain related liabilities.
Beacon Power is in line for $43m loan guarantee
Beacon Power Corp., a Tyngsborough company specializing in products and services that support efficient electricity grid operations, said that it has received a conditional commitment from the US Department of Energy for a loan guarantee $43 million.
"The DOE's offer outlines terms for a loan that would finance more than 60 percent of Beacon's planned 20-megawatt flywheel-based energy storage plant to be located in Stephentown, N.Y.," the company said in a press release.
To read a Globe story from last September about Beacon and its plans, please click here.
J&J buys $1b Elan stake, gains Alzheimer's R&D
Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $1 billion for an 18.4 percent stake in Irish drugmaker Elan Corp., and will acquire most of the rights to Elan's portfolio of experimental drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease.
(Elan co-markets a multiple sclerosis drug called Tysabri with Biogen Idec Inc. of Cambridge.)
The transaction, announced on Thursday, will give J&J an interest in bapineuzumab, a closely watched Alzheimer's drug in late-stage development that Elan is developing in collaboration with Wyeth. Wyeth is being acquired by Pfizer Inc.
Elan's shares rose 21 percent to $8.46 in mid-morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. J&J shares lost nearly 1 percent to $56.52.
J&J and Elan will form a new company, in which Elan will hold a 49.9 percent stake. The company will be headed by a seven-person board, of which five members will come from J&J.
Foley Hoag's Keating will chair Boston Foundation
The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, said that Michael B. Keating (right), a partner at the law firm Foley Hoag LLP, has been elected as the chair of the foundation's board of directors.
Keating succeeds Reverend Dr. Ray Hammond,a Boston clergyman who had served as chair since 2002 and stepped down due to term limits, the foundation said in a press release.
The Boston Foundation has assets of $763 million. In its fiscal 2008, the foundation and its donors made nearly $79 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of $102 million.
Keating's photo was taken from Foley Hoag's website.
Interleukin Genetics makes strategic divestment
Interleukin Genetics Inc., a Waltham company that develops and markets genetic tests, said it has executed an agreement to sell the Alan James Group assets of its subsidiary AJG Brands Inc. to Pep Products Inc., a subsidiary of Nutraceutical Corp., for $4.6 million in cash.
Interleukin Genetics chief executive Lewis H. Bender said in a statement: "While the Alan James Group business saw an increase in sales during the last fiscal year, and we were able to introduce two new products to the market in the past seven months, this transaction allows us to focus our efforts on growing our core genetic testing business."
Who, What, Where
Keith Turner (right) is the new vice chairman of the board of directors for Mercury Media, a Marlborough direct response media agency. As vice chairman, Turner will advise Mercury Media on best practices for attracting television’s elite advertisers and educating them on the evolving direct response advertising industry. Turner served as president of NBC Universal Sales & Marketing between 1998 and 2006.
Jay Kramer has been appointed to the post of vice president of worldwide marketing for Sepaton Inc., a Marlborough provider of disk-based data protection solutions. Most recently, Kramer served as vice president of marketing for iStor Networks.
Howard King, Joann Ellington (left), and Mark D. Battle have new jobs at Eastern Bank, a full-service commercial bank headquartered in Boston. King has joined the bank as a reverse mortgage specialist in its Mortgage Banking Department and will work out of Eastern’s Reading and Lynn offices, covering Middlesex County. Previously, King worked as a reverse mortgage specialist with Reliant Mortgage Corp. Ellington will be a senior loan officer in Eastern's Mortgage Banking Department. She will work out of Eastern’s Chelmsford office. Prior to joining Eastern Bank, Ellington worked as a loan officer at Wells Fargo. Battle has joined Eastern as a senior loan consultant in its Mortgage Banking Department. He will work out of Eastern’s Reading office. Before joining Eastern Bank, Battle worked as a senior loan consultant with Washington Mutual Bank.
Magazine ranks firms by commitment to diversity
The magazine black enterprise has announced its fifth annual listing of the 40 Best Companies for Diversity in its July issue, and while no Massachusetts-based companies made the list, some of the top companies have a big presence in the Bay State.
They include Bank of America Corp., Procter & Gamble Co., and IBM Corp., all of which have made acquisitions of Massachusetts companies.
According to black enterprise, the companies identified in this special report demonstrated strength and outperformed their peers in one or more of four key categories: board representation, employee base, senior management, and supplier diversity.
To read the black enterprise list, please click here.
Today in Globe Business
A steady hand for troubled Freddie
Charles “Ed’’ Haldeman Jr. keeps looking for bigger messes to clean up. Taking the helm of the embattled mortgage giant Freddie Mac fits the bill.
Haldeman - who this week ended his seven-year tenure at Boston’s Putnam Investments - has been recommended by Freddie Mac’s board to be its chief executive, but he must be approved by the company’s US regulator, according to a person knowledgeable about the decision.
If approved, the 60-year-old Haldeman would become the second prominent Boston businessman to try to fix Freddie Mac. Richard Syron, who ran the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, was hired as Freddie’s chief executive in 2003 after a $5 billion accounting scandal. He resigned in September after failing to prevent the company’s slide into government receivership.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Larry Platt, the top editor of Boston magazine, is from Philadelphia and it shows. During a breakfast interview last week, his description of an upcoming story about recently indicted former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi hit a pronunciation snag. “Is it Di-May-si or Di-Mah-si?’’ he asked with a hint of uncharacteristic bashfulness.
Platt - who is also editor of Philadelphia magazine, both owned by Philadelphia-based Metrocorp Inc. - is unfamiliar with the scene in the Massachusetts capital and unapologetic about it. But he intends to make Boston magazine a “must read’’ that “gets the movers and shakers in Boston shaking.’’
In the process, he also hopes to halt a sales slump that has caused the glossy monthly to lose money this year for the first time in its nearly 40-year history.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Scientists find master heart cell
Harvard University scientists said yesterday they discovered a master human heart cell that gives rise to three major types of heart tissue, providing new tools for drug development and an important advance toward the ultimate goal of repairing damaged hearts.
Using human embryonic stem cells, the researchers have unraveled part of the process by which the human heart is built during development - insight they hope could be used to understand congenital heart disease and create new therapies for cardiovascular disease, the top cause of death in the United States.
“Since these [cells] are entirely human, you can use this system now to study the role of specific genes in human heart disease, and as ways to screen drugs for cardiotoxicity and for therapeutic effect,’’ said Dr. Kenneth R. Chien, director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He is senior author of the paper, published in Nature yesterday.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Developers of Pike site told to act
The Patrick administration has ordered developers of the $800 million Columbus Center project to either move forward with construction or spend millions of dollars to remove staging at the site - an ultimatum that could be a death knell for the foundering Boston development.
State officials expect the developers, the real estate arm of the California state pension fund and Boston-based Winn Cos., to remove barriers and take other steps to clean up the Back Bay work zone within several months, but officials also hint they will remove the team if it doesn’t soon produce proof it can build the massive project.
“At some point we need to call the question and say, is this really going to happen?’’ said Jeffrey Mullan, executive director of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which has leased the site to the developers.
To read the full story, please click here.
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TECH LAB: One call rings them all ...
After years of wasting our time with built-in cameras, music players, and casual games, cellphone makers are finally giving us something we really need: one plug to charge them all. Next year, the world’s leading phone manufacturers will adopt a universal interface, so that one power adapter will charge any phone.
But the most important telephone interface is nowhere near universal. I refer, of course, to the phone number. We’ve got home numbers, work numbers, cell numbers, sometimes several of each. They all do the exact same job, only with different phones. What we need is a universal phone number that can ring any or all of our phones.
And soon you’ll be able to get one, courtesy of Google Inc. The company has begun rolling out Google Voice, a service to let us manage our telephonic lives through a single, Internet-connected phone number. There’s no charge, although you still have to pay for your regular phone services.
To read the full story, please click here.
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CombinatoRx in 'creative' merger with Canadian firm
CombinatoRx Inc., a Cambridge biotechnology company that last year eliminated two-thirds of its workforce in a bid to stretch its cash, yesterday said it has found a Canadian merger partner that will bring an infusion of cash and create a stronger pipeline of drugs.
In what was billed as a merger of equals, CombinatoRx, which trades on the Nasdaq exchange, agreed to combine with privately held Neuromed Pharmaceuticals Ltd. of Vancouver, British Columbia. The deal will result in the reduction of about 20 more jobs at CombinatoRx.
Ownership stakes in the new company will hinge on the outcome of a US Food and Drug Administration ruling, scheduled for November, on Neuromed’s application for a pain relieving drug called Exalgo. The merger is set to close by the end of the year.
To read the full story, please click here.
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Freddie Mac eyes Haldeman for CEO
The board of mortgage giant Freddie Mac has selected Putnam Investments chairman Charles E. "Ed" Haldeman Jr. as its top candidate for chief executive, according to a person knowledgeable about the company.
The news comes the day after Putnam announced that Haldeman is retiring as the Boston money manager's chairman. Haldeman was brought in seven years ago to guide Putnam after its mutual funds plummeted in the wake of the tech bubble bursting. (To read a story in today's Globe about Haldeman and Putnam, please click here.
In a memo to the staff, Putnam chief executive Robert Reynolds wrote of Haldeman: "When a company is sorely tested, as Putnam was some years back, the job of restoring investors’ trust and confidence is not easy. But Ed Haldeman’s steady hand and his commitment to integrity did help Putnam get back on track. Under his stewardship, we also secured an ideal corporate partner in Great-West LifeCo and the Power Financial Corp."
The possibility that Haldeman might become Freddie Mac's chief executive was first reported by the Wall Street Journal is reporting. The Journal cited "people familiar with the situation" as the sources for its story.
If Haldeman were to become chief executive of Freddie Mac, he would hold a job once held by Richard Syron, an economist who once led the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
HFF arranges financing for Center for Life Science
Holliday Fenoglio Fowler L.P., or HFF, said it has arranged $350 million in financing for the Center for Life Science | Boston, a roughly 700,000-square-foot research facility in the city's Longwood Medical Area.
Working on behalf of BioMed Realty Trust Inc., the center's owner, HFF's Boston and San Diego offices "placed the five-year, 7.75% fixed-rate loan with three lenders: John Hancock Life Insurance Company, TIAA-CREF, and Westdeutsche ImmobilienBank AG," HFF said in a press release.
HFF is a provider of commercial real estate and capital market services to the US real estate industry.
"Completed in 2008, the Center for Life Science | Boston is located at 3 Blackfan Circle, across from Harvard Medical School and directly connected to Children’s Hospital Boston and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston," HFF said. "The property has 18 stories of laboratory and office space that is leased to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Immune Disease Institute, and Kowa Company, Ltd. The property also includes a six-level, 750-space underground parking garage."
In May, a Globe story noted that Beth Israel Deaconess was taking steps to stem a projected $28 million loss this year. Hospital officials blame the projected loss on lower-than-expected funding from the National Institutes of Health and on its costly lease arrangement with the Center for Life Science.
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