Available Lab Space Declining

BOSTON-The amount of available lab space in the Greater Boston area has dropped from 14.9% to 11.9 % in the past six months, an indication of widespread growth in the region’s booming biotech industry, a report by Richards Barry Joyce & Partners indicates.

About 605,000 sf of laboratory space was absorbed by the state’s biotech industry in the six-month period ended Sept. 30, with Cambridge the clear winner in the boom. Cambridge absorbed 531,000 sf of the space during the period, an absorption that was the greatest for any two quarter period in the history of the city’s lab market, the report found.

In Boston’s 2.5-million-sf lab market, the city experienced 34,000 sf of negative absorption during the last six months, increasing the city’s vacancy rate to 4.1% from 2.7%. Space constraints is a factor in the increase in vacancy. The region’s suburban market saw 108,000 sf of positive absorption during the period which lowered suburban laboratory vacancy from 23.8 % to 20.9%.

Among the region’s largest lab space users was Novartis, which became the largest lab user in Cambridge with the addition of 66,000 sf at Technology Square.

The report also found that more than 1.5 million sf of new biotech space will come on line in Boston and its suburbs within the next two years.