Boston-based King Street Properties formally broke ground on Tuesday on Allston Labworks, a $915 million life sciences development with retail and residential components on Western Avenue.
The mixed-use project is going up at the former site of Stadium Auto Body, at the intersection of Western Avenue and Everett Street. The 4.3-acre site will feature three buildings, with 534,000 square feet of lab space, 35 residential units and 20,000 square feet of retail. It will also have a 12,000-square-foot plaza.
The development is being built without tenants lined up. King Street and its partners secured $585 million in construction financing for Allston Labworks this summer.
Companies are expected to be able to move into the lab space by the end of 2024.
King Street announced Tuesday that the development will be home to a space called the Learning Lab that will host life sciences educational programming. It will be run by Newton-based BioBuilder Educational Foundation. Developers are increasingly featuring such initiatives in their lab buildings.
“Today marks the beginning of a true collaboration between development and community,” King Street managing director Mike Diminico said in a statement.
Allston LabWorks is located in the part of Allston-Brighton being rezoned by the city to incentivize more multifamily housing and affordable housing, while allowing for lab and commercial uses in certain clusters. The Boston Planning and Development Agency approved the rezoning last week. It must still be reviewed by the city’s Zoning Commission.
The project’s architect is DiMella Shaffer. Its contractor is Consigli Construction Co.
From Greg Ryan at the Boston Business Journal: