CAMBRIDGE, MA—Chalk up another major lease deal at Alexandria Real Estate Equities' Kendall Square development here as biotech firm bluebirdbio, Inc. has inked a lease for 253,000 square feet of space at 60 Binney St., which is currently under construction.

Officials with Pasadena, CA-based Alexandria Real Estate tell Globest.com that the deal involves all of the 60 Kendall St. building with the exception of some ground floor retail space. The bluebirdbio firm is currently headquartered a few blocks away at Alexandria's 150 South St. in Cambridge where it occupies approximately 40,000 square feet of space. The firm also has offices in Seattle and Paris.

The lease is for 10 years and the biotech firm, which is developing gene therapies for severe genetic and rare diseases and T cell-based immunotherapies, is expected to take occupancy once the building is completed at the end of 2016.

Alexandria is currently building two other buildings at its Alexandria Center at Kendall Square development—50 Binney St. and 100 Binney St. Genzyme, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical firm Sanofi, has leased 251,234 square feet at 50 Binney St. and will relocate from 500 Kendall Square in Cambridge when the building is completed also at the end of next year. That lease involves the entire 50 Binney St. building.

In late June of this year Alexandria struck a lease deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb for 208,000 square feet of space 100 Binney St. or roughly a little more than half of the building. Bristol Meyers is expected to take occupancy in early 2018. Construction has already started and is expected to be finished by the fourth quarter of 2014.

In total, Alexandria is building approximately 1 million square feet of new space at the complex, which has an estimated total development cost of $900-per-square-foot and thus could approach $900 million upon completion.

Joel Marcus, chairman, chief executive and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, says of the leasing activity at its Cambridge complex, “It's been a very strong market in Cambridge… Developers sometime miss the markets when they build and so I think we are very fortunate we have hit a good time in the market. We are very heavily pre-leased, which is very good for the company.”

Marcus says that there are four floors left to lease at 100 Binney St. and he notes, “We are talking to a whole lot of people. At the moment we don't have anything signed but we have more demand than we have space so we expect it all to be spoken for in the next few months.”

Commenting on bluebirdbio's move and expanded headquarters space at 60 Binney St., Nick Leschly, chief bluebird says in a prepared statement, "At bluebird our sole focus is to bring potentially life-changing therapies to patients in need as quickly as possible. We are excited that our partnership with Alexandria will enable us to continue our progress toward this goal in the middle of one of the most exciting and productive hubs of life sciences innovation.” The 60 Binney St. building is being built with the goal of achieving LEED Gold Certification.

With the company's lentiviral-based gene therapy and gene editing capabilities, bluebird bio has built an integrated product platform with broad potential application to severe genetic diseases and T cell-based immunotherapy.

The Alexandria Center at Kendall Square is an urban campus featuring 2.3 million rentable square feet of office/laboratory space, high-quality amenities, and adjacent green space. Alexandria owns approximately 5.2 million rentable square feet of office/laboratory space (including development projects currently under construction) serving more than 100 life science and related client tenants.

The company, which has a total market capitalization of $10.7 billion as of June 30, 2015, has an asset base of 31.1 million square feet, including 18.8 million rentable square feet of operating properties and development projects under construction, as well as an additional 12.3 million square feet of near-term and future ground-up development projects. Besides Greater Boston, the firm also has significant holdings in San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.