Boston, MA
Springfield’s Peter Pan Bus Lines takes over Megabus service from Boston to D.C.
![Springfield’s Peter Pan Bus Lines takes over Megabus service from Boston to D.C. Springfield’s Peter Pan Bus Lines takes over Megabus service from Boston to D.C.](https://www.masslive.com/resizer/v2/JO65UFREFNF6RIS3UNARZSZLBY.jpg?auth=09e8ff55f8fa2457bba7552374e66278d4b4082aba4d849eb3b76f33f34fb6f0&width=1280&quality=90)
SPRINGFIELD — Peter Pan Bus Lines is taking over Megabus routes in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states stretching from Boston to New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and points in between.
“It’s a big deal for us,” Peter A. Picknelly, chairman and CEO of Peter Pan Bus Lines.
The move doubles Peter Pan’s operations along the busy northeastern corridor, Picknelly said. Before the changes, Peter Pan offered 14 trips each way every day between Boston and Washington, D.C. Starting at midnight Thursday into Friday, that becomes 28 trips.
In the past, Peter Pan has operated only from about 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Starting Friday, it’s a 24-hour operation, said Picknelly, who is the third-generation leader of the company.
The expansion also requires new drivers and 45 new buses at $635,000 each.
“We’re modernizing our fleet, which is what our consumers want: They want a nice, clean, modern bus. We listen to our customers — where they want to go — and expand where it makes sense. We’re hiring drivers left and right,” Picknelly said.
With the expansion, the company has hired 35 driver and has plans to add even more. Also, Picknelly said Peter Pan will add more mechanics and maintenance people along the corridor to support the new operations.
“It’s a great opportunity for Peter Pan,” he said.
Megabus owner Coach USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June, according to published reports.
Peter Pan had already taken over Megabus routes in Boston, Picknelly said.
In preparation, Peter Pan has reduced fares by close to 40%.
Megabus’ parent company will continue to operate commuter lines in and around New York City.
The Megabus website will still be active selling tickets, Picknelly said. But starting Friday those tickets will be for Peter Pan-run buses.
Most of the destinations are places Peer Pan has long served, he said. But Peter Pan is adding two new cities: one in the Philadelphia suburbs and White Marsh, Maryland, in the Baltimore suburbs where Megabus had a major presence.
“It’s a substantial opportunity for us,” Picknelly said. “We’re looking forward to many customers riding with us for the first time.”
Picknelly said travelers are choosing buses because of their cost and frequent service.
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Boston, MA
By one key measure, Boston’s lab market is in as rough shape as the pandemic-battered office market – The Boston Globe
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 rate for 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.
“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.
![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.](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/SBKVRH43VDXCOORVYZJM3EUP2U.jpg?auth=299eff995456e0c845b9b5016660ccc1b25ff054ee982f304a77f8d9a82b5a61&width=1440)
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 even halted 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.”
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 executive and 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.”
![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.](https://bostonglobe-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/V2N22HWMAG2WSEGTQMICE2BJZM.jpg?auth=0edd93c8393e1309855cc4389fc25897c48720fb9ecf362c12efad8ad05cd36c&width=1440)
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
Boston, MA
Tim Walz speaks at high-paying fundraiser in Boston for his campaign
![Tim Walz speaks at high-paying fundraiser in Boston for his campaign Tim Walz speaks at high-paying fundraiser in Boston for his campaign](https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/08/15/6db55b77-6dcb-483e-ae50-301ee47e698a/thumbnail/1200x630/aa50b7c959b5b91751fd038651d17f24/f96087d164b67578ca833a799d2ebf07.jpg?v=d8f7565ef3e8b72561ee316b5993cbf9)
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Boston, MA
Boaters warned to give young whale hanging out in Boston Harbor space
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