MIT to sell Tech Square for $600m to Calif. firm

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has agreed to sell the sprawling Technology Square complex in Cambridge to a California real estate firm for $600 million, more than double what the university paid for it five years ago, an executive informed about the transaction confirmed yesterday.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. of Pasadena outbid nearly two dozen other competitors for the choice property along Main Street. Rob Griffin, president of brokerage Cushman & Wakefield of Massachusetts Inc., which represented MIT, declined to confirm an agreement had been reached, saying only that the property is ``off the market, and we are very, very close with somebody."

Steven C. Marsh, managing director of real estate for MIT Investment Management Co., declined to comment, and officials at Alexandria could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Alexandria is a $3.9 billion publicly traded company that focuses on office and laboratory space. Its shares closed yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange at $84.50, up 11 cents.

The company will purchase all but a small share of the portfolio of buildings on the site; MIT will continue to own the rest, as well as the land underneath the complex, said the executive briefed on the deal, who declined to be identified because the sale is not complete and Alexandria has not disclosed it.

Tech Square is near Kendall Square, and includes seven buildings and a parking garage for almost 1,600 cars. MIT bought it in 2001 for $279 million from Beacon Capital Partners LLC, a private Boston real estate firm. The university redeveloped three of the buildings and invested millions in improvements, and the complex now serves the life-sciences industry.

Among the tenants are Novartis AG and Forrester Research Inc. The group of buildings had about 17,000 square feet of retail in January, and MIT is adding 20,000 square feet more.

MIT put the property on the market in April. Earlier, in January, MIT's Marsh said the university had achieved its goal of repositioning the complex to serve life sciences. ``It's a great time for us to be taking money out of the deal," he said then.

Cushman & Wakefield predicted the property would draw strong interest. And indeed, Griffin said Tech Square attracted some 14 bids of $530 million or more. The 23 bids were a record number in Cushman & Wakefield's experience for a property this large, he said.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.