Three years ago, in the depths of the pandemic, only around 1 percent of existing lab space in the region was vacant or available via sublease. Today, commercial real estate brokerage Colliers reported last week, that number is 21.5 percent, and vacancies are expected to grow in the coming months as more buildings open. For comparison, the availability ratefor office space in Greater Boston is 22.7 percent.
There are fundamental differences between the lab and office markets — notably the fact that most lab work, unlike office work,needs to be done in person. But the sharp rise in lab vacancies is a stark reminder of how quickly fortunes can change for a hot industry, even a still thriving one like Boston’s biotechs.
The amount of Greater Boston lab space that is occupied by tenants has climbed by more than one-fifth over the last two years. But this wave of new construction and office-to-lab conversions means the amount of vacant space has climbed even faster, hitting an all-time high of 11 million square feet.And for lab landlords, the scene will likely get worse before it gets better.
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“We haven’t seen vacancies peak yet,”said Colliers research director Jeffrey Myers. “Once they start to turn the corner, it could take years … to get back to something we would consider more of a normal market.”
Several factors are driving the sudden shift.
Back when lab space was impossible to find, pent-up demand prompted many developers to bet on life sciences projects“on spec,” or without commitments from tenants. At the time, many local biotechs often took whatever lease they could find, sometimes renting considerably more than they needed. Meanwhile, money poured into the region’s biotech scene from venture capitalists hoping for a big payout, through an initial public offering, or from a sale to a much larger drug company, fueling demand for real estate. As a result, lab projects sprouted all over the region.
Now, many of those shiny new buildings are hitting the market — the amount of lab space in the northwestern suburbs along Route 128, for example, essentially doubled in the past five years. The small firms that took on more space than they needed are now looking to sublease some of it. The IPO machine has slowed considerably, as has the flow of cash from VC firms. And several significant players, including Takeda and Ginkgo Bioworks, have announced layoffs in recent months.
“It’s a correction from the sugar high we had during COVID when everybody was piling money into anything that said ‘life sciences,’” said Bob Coughlin, an executive at real estate brokerage JLL’s Boston office who specializes in lab deals.
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A former Tufts Health Plan building on Mount Auburn Street in Watertown has been converted to lab space, but leasing on these new projects has been slower than expected.Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
The slowdown is evident all over Greater Boston. Myers rattled off a few examples topping 400,000 square feet in size, from the former John Hancock headquarters at 601 Congress St. in the Seaport that was renovated into labs but remains empty, to the former Tufts Health Plan headquarters in Watertown, also converted and empty. A similarly sized building just went up across from the Leader Bank Pavilion in the Seaport — also vacant. Lab plans have been shelved for a former auto dealership site in Needham and at the Riverside train terminal in Newton, while construction was evenhalted midstream on a lab building going up along McGrath Highway in Somerville.
Factor in the buildings that are under construction, and the region’s lab availability rate approaches 32 percent, according to JLL.In total, nearly 5 million square feet of labs opened in just the first six months of 2024 across Greater Boston, per JLL’s research, with only one-fifth of that newly built space already leased.
Empty floors even abound in the industry epicenter of Kendall Square. There was less speculative building in Kendall — most new buildings there are preleased to big tenants such as AstraZeneca, the Broad Institute, and Takeda. But Colliers notes a record amount of lab space is on the market now in Cambridge: 3.6 million square feet, most of it in or near Kendall.
Beth O’Neill Maloney, head of the Kendall Square Association, doesn’t sound worried. Kendall is as vibrant as it’s ever been, she said, and the empty space could allow more startups to expand there.
“It’s the normal ebb and flow as we build and fill, I’m pretty confident about that,” Maloney said. “Zero percent vacancy rate probably isn’t the healthiest for us. … The availability of some sublease space actually helps some early-stage companies grow here, thrive, and take root.”
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Advocates for the industry say the empty space underscores the need for the Legislature to pass an economic development bill that would allocate roughly $100 million a year for life sciences, essentially reauthorizing two previous rounds of state assistance. The House and Senate could not reach an agreement on the bill before regularly scheduled formal sessions ended for the year on Aug. 1. The Massachusetts Biotechnology Council sent a letter last week to legislative leaders, urging them to bring lawmakers back for a special formal session to pass the bill as soon as possible, as Governor Maura Healey has requested.
“My hope would be there’s a sense of urgency,” said Ben Bradford, a vice president at MassBio. “This is a great tool for the state to recruit companies or to keep companies here.”
Still, the sharp surge in vacancies has provided welcome relief to all the smaller biotechs that had been jockeying for space. Coughlin, the JLL executiveand former head of MassBio, has been working through a planned vacation this week to keep up.
“I’m doing predominantly tenant work, and I’m as busy as I can be,” Coughlin said. “I don’t like being this busy in August, but I am.”
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The new Lilly Seaport Innovation Center, a 12-story, 346,000-square-foot building along Fort Point Channel, opened this week, a bright spot in the current market for life sciences real estate in that the building opened fully occupied.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
Beyond Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony on Opening Day, and Wilyer Abreu, in general, not much is going right for the Boston Red Sox in the first games of the 2026 season.
After dropping the last two games of their opening series in Cincinnati, the underwhelming road trip moved on to Houston, where two Red Sox offseason pitching additions were hit hard in their team debuts and Boston lost its most lopsided game yet to the Astros, 8-1, on Monday night.
Left-hander Ranger Suárez lasted 4 1/3 innings and allowed four earned runs on seven hits, one walk and three strikeouts. He gave up home runs to Yordan Alvarez and Brice Matthews.
“There was some good,” manager Alex Cora told reporters of Suárez, “and there were some things that we’ve got to work (on).”
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Suarez, whose five-year, $130 million contract is the fourth-richest for a pitcher in franchise history, is coming off a peculiar spring training in which he missed a significant portion of camp due to the World Baseball Classic, but ultimately only pitched once in Team Venezuela’s championship run. He told reporters health wasn’t a factor in Monday’s performance.
“Obviously it wasn’t the result that we all wanted, but physically I felt good,” Suárez said via team translator.
Johan Oviedo, acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates in December, relieved Suárez but the Astros kept scoring. Yainer Diaz plated Houston’s fifth run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth. Jose Altuve took Oviedo deep on the first pitch of the bottom of the seventh, and Christian Walker’s double high off the wall made it 7-1, before Altuve homered off Oviedo again in the eighth.
“The little man (Altuve) got him,” Cora said. “That’s what he does.”
While the Astros blasted Suárez and Oviedo, Lance McCullers Jr. made mincemeat of the Boston bats. Over seven practically-perfect innings, he yielded just one earned run on four hits, one walk and nine strikeouts.
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McCullers retired the first seven Red Sox batters before allowing a baserunner. He faced the minimum three batters per inning until one out in the seventh, because the first two Boston batters to reach – Carlos Narváez and Wilyer Abreu on one-out singles in the third and fifth innings, respectively – immediately became part of inning-ending double plays.
“He was really good,” Cora said of McCullers. “We didn’t put pressure on him early on. … And then when we had him on the ropes, he went to his breaking ball.”
Anthony’s fourth-inning flyout was Boston’s only hard-hit ball with a positive launch angle until the top of the seventh, when the Red Sox briefly broke through and ensured they would at least avoid being shut out.
With one out in the seventh, Trevor Story lined a ball to left and dove into second with a swim move that flipped him over and sent Altuve rolling away from the bag. On his back with his right hand on the base and his legs in the air, Story, who was initially called out, immediately began gesturing emphatically with his left hand. Upon review, the veteran shortstop was safe at second with a double.
Jarren Duran joined Story on the bases with a walk, and though Willson Contreras’ force-out sent Story back to the dugout, Abreu’s ground-rule double brought Duran home to score. Pinch-hitting for Caleb Durbin, who is now 0 for 14 to begin his Red Sox career, Masataka Yoshida forced McCullers to throw eight pitches before he struck out to end the inning.
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Marcelo Mayer led off the eighth with a walk against Astros reliever Ryan Weiss, but the Red Sox rally bid ended there. Weiss retired the next six Boston batters.
The Red Sox tallied just four hits, two walks and struck out 12 times. Four games into the MLB season they’ve struck out 41 times, ninth-most in the majors, and scored 11 runs, tied for fourth-fewest.
Tech entrepreneur Paul English knows that ponying up $1 million will make just about anyone pay attention.
He saw it firsthand in 2017 when he proposed kick-starting a Martin Luther King memorial to then-mayor Marty Walsh. The end result: The Embrace, a memorial on the Boston Common honoring King and wife Coretta Scott King that was finished in 2023.
Now, English is trying to work some of that million-dollar magic with a new mayor, Michelle Wu. And this time, it’s to help Boston Public Schools. (English is a proud Boston Latin School alum.) On Thursday, English joined Wu, schools superintendent Mary Skipper, and UMass Boston chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco at the Eliot K-8 Innovation Upper School to announce his latest venture: $1 million to train 25 teachers, one at each BPS high school, this summer in AI. The teachers would share what they learned with students in their respective schools.
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It started out with a seemingly innocuous question, posed last year by Boston magazine to 21 prominent local leaders: If you were mayor of Boston, what’s the one thing you would do to improve the city?
For English, the answer was simple: ensure every kid who graduates BPS is proficient in AI. After the article was published, English said he heard from colleagues in the tech scene, from as far away as California, that he was on to something.
So he drafted a conceptual AI proficiency plan and reached out to Wu about it in January, agreeing to donate $1 million to get it going.
The next step is drawing up the curriculum for the teachers who will attend the sessions at UMass Boston, where English founded an AI center. Toward that end, English is working with Ellen Rubin at Glasswings Ventures to establish an advisory board of industry experts. Topics will include AI ethics, hallucinations, and using AI to improve the classroom experience.
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Meanwhile, English said he’s reaching out to OpenAI and to Anthropic to ask them to donate computing resources. “If I were them, it’s a no brainer,” English said. “Boston’s the first [major] city in the country to do this. Why wouldn’t they be on the ground floor.”
It’s the latest example of how English is trying to give back to the community where he grew up. He made most of his millions through the sale of travel firm Kayak to Booking Holdings in 2013, and is currently developing consumer apps with his Boston Venture Studio.
A million-dollar pledge is a sign to be taken seriously. It helped open the doors with Walsh, and he believes it did so with Wu as well.
“It’s not an extraordinary amount of money,” English said. “But in the big picture, they pay attention.”
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene.
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Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – NOVEMBER 01: Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics reacts in the first quarter during their game against the Charlotte Hornets at Spectrum Center on November 01, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
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On Sunday night, the Boston Celtics played the Charlotte Hornets in North Carolina.
The Celtics won by a score of 114-99.
Boston Celtics Star Jayson Tatum Made History
GettyFOXBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS – MARCH 26: Jayson Tatum, player of Boston Celtics looks on prior to the international friendly match between Brazil and France at Gillette Stadium on March 26, 2026 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)
Jayson Tatum finished the win with 32 points, five rebounds, eight assists and one block while shooting 12/23 from the field and 5/10 from three-point range in 31 minutes of playing time.
Tatum also made history during the game.
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Celtics Stats wrote: “Jayson Tatum scored his 14,000th career point tonight at Charlotte, becoming the ninth player in franchise history to reach that mark.”
GettyBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – MARCH 06: Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics looks on during the second quarter at TD Garden on March 06, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Tatum is now averaging 20.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.1 steals per contest while shooting 39.9% from the field and 32.3% from three-point range in 11 games this season.
Celtics Stats added: “Jayson Tatum recorded a season-high 32 points tonight at Charlotte. It marked his 16th career game with at least 30 points without committing a turnover – the most in franchise history.”
GettyCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – NOVEMBER 02: Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics dunks against the Charlotte Hornets during the second half of the game at Spectrum Center on November 02, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Celtics After Hornets Victory
GettyDETROIT, MICHIGAN – OCTOBER 26: Jayson Tatum #0 of the Boston Celtics looks on against the Detroit Pistons during the second quarter at Little Caesars Arena on October 26, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
With their win over the Hornets, the Celtics improved to 50-24 in 74 games, which has them as the second seed in the Eastern Conference.
They are in the middle of a three-game winning streak (and have won seven out of their last ten).
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On the road, the Celtics have gone 24-13.
Following the Hornets, they will play their next game on Monday night when they visit the Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena in Georgia.
GettyBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – MARCH 08: Jaylen Brown #7 of the Boston Celtics talks with head coach Joe Mazzulla during the second half against the Los Angeles Lakers at TD Garden on March 08, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 111-101. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
With Tatum playing like himself, the Celtics will have a real chance to win their second title in three years.
They are coming off a year where they lost to Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks in the second round of the 2025 NBA playoffs.
Hornets After Boston Loss
GettyCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – MARCH 26: (R-L) LaMelo Ball #1 talks with Moussa Diabate #14 of the Charlotte Hornets in the second half against the New York Knicks during their game at Spectrum Center on March 26, 2026 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
The Hornets dropped to 39-36 in 75 games, which has them as the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference.
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They are in the middle of a two-game losing skid (but have won seven out of ten).
Ben Stinar Ben Stinar has been covering the NBA for over seven years.
He has written for OnSI, Forbes, Amico Hoops, The Big Lead and had a podcast with former All-Star Jameer Nelson. More about Ben Stinar
