By: Alexander Margulis PhD, Chief Operating Officer, Mansfield Bio-incubator
A recent article in Boston Business Journal By Scott Kirsner extolled the virtues of Kendall Square as the best place in the world to start a biotech company. Proximity to the groundbreaking research from Harvard and MIT is ‘a’ key catalyst in creating hundreds of technology and life science startups. It’s true that it has attracted major international corporations such as Novartis, Takeda, Sanofi, Google, and Boeing, to name a few, to establish a large footprint in the area. This in turn contributed to the prices per square foot in a typical lab space to skyrocket to the $100 mark and to an ever-increasing congestion in the area.
In response, to reduce the real estate cost, miles outside Kendall Square are numerous life science clusters from the North Shore in Beverly to Woburn/Burlington to Natick/Framingham and Worcester and yes Mansfield.
Mansfield sits at the juncture of I-495/I-95 between Boston and Providence with a Commuter Rail stop connecting these two major New England cities. Mansfield is the home of most of the successful medical device companies, including Smith & Nephew, Medtronic, Integra Life Sciences. A number of contract organizations like, New England Controls, Bridgemedica, and Proven Process, also reside in Mansfield. And now, it is also the home of the Mansfield Bio-Incubator.
The real truth is few and far between of the emerging companies launching in the region can afford to rent more than a docking station in the CIC and it is culture shock for established companies to justify a three- to four-fold increase their annual budget on real estate alone.
It is astonishing for those arrived in Boston even as recently as 30 years ago to believe it is the same place where it was unsafe to walk near any of these leading academic institutions and medical centers.
I know you hear every day how much the Venture Capital firms and the many key stakeholders love to talk about their ‘daily’ serendipity encounters and regular meet ups at Starbucks.
Digs a little deeper and you will learn that most of the workforce in the labs and tech positions are barely able to find affordable rentals on convenient public transportation train or bus lines.
Just help me out – reverse commuting or living closer to home in more affordable neighborhoods along or even outside 128 with better schools and neighborhoods for young families to thrive does not sound more sustainable and healthier?
So when you are finally worn out, after a day of the grueling lab work, commuting 1-2 hours each way and emptying your wallet on real estate and all other expenses that come with living and working inside the Kendall Square or Boston Seaport footprint, remember those of us that weighed work life balance to being too tired to enjoy random serendipity.
Trade organizations located near Kendall Square have been vocal to push for improvement of the quality of life for the workforce commuting to Cambridge from all the 351 Massachusetts cities and towns and surrounding states. To accomplish this, multiple initiatives were proposed. These include modernizing the Red Line, upgrading the Commuter Rail, encouraging the employers to incentivize the use of public transportation and carpooling, implementing the congestion pricing on the roads, and encouraging the telecommuting.
The ideas listed above should improve the commuting experience to Kendall Square. However, given the limited physical space, these initiatives will still not be able to sufficiently address the congestion and the cost per square foot and will take at least a decade to implement.
We at Mansfield Bio-Incubator recognize that to maintain the health of the life science ecosystem across the state, creating mini-hubs like ours is vital. The property we are situated at, an old glass factory, is intended to be converted into the life science manufacturing hub. In this way, we can serve both as a convenient place for the entrepreneurs living in the Southeastern New England region to start the venture and grow the company. Moreover, by attracting other more established companies from Boston/Cambridge or other parts of the world, to establish the manufacturing facilities, we will keep the groundbreaking science inside the region and create more local job opportunities. Many of our entrepreneurs and their employees, as well as those from other suburban locales, can attest that it is science that attracts the talent throughout the state, not the location of the company.
Therefore, we ask the life science community in the state, together with the state officials and other relevant organizations, to continue practicing a more holistic approach in the economic growth and encourage a more even life science-driven economic development across the state and the surrounding region. This will go a long way in deploying the capital efficiently, maintaining strong communities and families, providing a just access to job opportunities, and reducing the traffic-related carbon emissions to combat climate change.