Copyright The Boston Globe
The Watertown Mall is staying the same, for now. For years, laboratory developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities had planned to replace the aging mall and build a life science campus on most of the 24.5-acre property. It even had approvals from Watertown officials to develop eight buildings with lab space, amenities, offices, and retail there. Last week, however, California-based Alexandria sold the property, for $100.25 million to National Development of Newton, according to Middlesex County property records. That price is 23 percent less than the $130 million Alexandria paid four years ago. Now, amid a broad slowdown in life science development, plans to replace the mall with lab space are off the table. National plans to keep the property as a retail center for the foreseeable future, Chief Investment Officer Andrew Gallinaro told the Globe. Advertisement “We will continue to make improvements and operate it as a first-class shopping center,” Gallinaro said. “It’s an extremely high-quality location and a great community. Over the longer term, there may be other avenues to explore. But for the time being, we’re very focused on operating as a first-class shopping center.” The mall is 96 percent leased, with tenants that include Target, Best Buy, and the Registry of Motor Vehicles. National is planning to upgrade signage and tenant storefronts, Gallinaro said. “It’s really difficult to (build) retail centers in high-density, high-traffic locations like this,” he said. “As a center, this has actually performed very well, and retailers there have even outperformed.” Alexandria had not yet undertaken any physical changes to the mall to prepare for a redevelopment. Since it won approval in 2023 for a large-scale lab campus, Greater Boston’s lab space market has pivoted from undersupply to surplus. Advertisement In mid-2021, when Alexandria purchased the mall and began exploring lab space there, regional lab vacancy was at 1.6 percent and Watertown’s East End was emerging as a lower-cost alternative to Kendall Square. Today, that figure has ballooned to 27.7 percent, according to CBRE, and projects all over the region have been put on hold. An Alexandria representative did not respond to a Globe request for comment. Catherine Carlock can be reached at catherine.carlock@globe.com. Follow her @bycathcarlock.
