JLL Capital Markets arranges $62.5m financing for 44 Middlesex Tpke. - secured the loan through Blue Light Capital

Bedford, MA JLL Capital Markets arranged $62.5 million in financing for 44 Middlesex Tpke., a 23.4-acre advanced manufacturing campus.

JLL worked on behalf of the borrower, a partnership between Wheelock St. Capital and Camber Development, to secure the loan through Blue Light Capital.

 The property consists of a newly completed, Class A, 148,458 s/f advanced manufacturing facility and an adjacent 12.3-acre pad-ready development site entitled for an additional 147,000 s/f. Upon completion of the second phase, the campus will total 295,000 s/f of state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing space. The first building delivered at the end of 2024 and is currently 32% leased to Fourth Power, an energy sustainability and grid resilience company. The technology Fourth Power is commercializing, a long duration thermal energy storage system, spun out of MIT, where its founder is a professor, and is backed by Munich Re Ventures, DCVC, and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

44 Middlesex Tpke. is a purpose-built facility that features market-leading specifications for advanced manufacturing users, including 36 ft. to 40 ft. clear heights in high-bay areas, 8,600 amps of power per building (17,200 amps total), flexible mezzanine space with 20 ft. clear heights, 40 ft. by 40 ft. column spacing and six loading docks per building. The reinforced roof structure accommodates rooftop mechanical systems, eliminating loss factors and providing flexibility for tenants requiring specialized buildouts. These attributes distinguish the asset from older vintage converted flex industrial buildings that historically served this manufacturing tenant segment.

Located on Middlesex Tpke., the property provides immediate access to Rte. 3 and connects to I-95 in five minutes and downtown Boston in 20 minutes. The location serves executive and R&D talent throughout the Boston suburbs while accessing a densely populated manufacturing workforce concentrated north of Boston through southern New Hampshire. The site is within a 30-minute drive of roughly 500,000 people and reaches more than 2.1 million people within a 60-minute commute.

Bedford and the surrounding North Market have emerged as Greater Boston’s primary hub for advanced manufacturing.

 given the area’s connectivity to Cambridge and inventory of high-powered buildings. The immediate vicinity is home to a growing number of prominent advanced manufacturing, life science and technology employers. The location also benefits from proximity to MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, which conducts advanced technology research and development for national security applications, and the MIT Bates Laboratory, a research facility associated with MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

The Greater Boston market has experienced significant growth in advanced manufacturing tenant demand over the last 12 months, driven by venture capital investment in sectors headlined by physical AI and robotics, aerospace and defense, energy storage and climate technology, semiconductor development, 3D printing, medical devices and biomanufacturing. Massachusetts ranks second nationally in advanced manufacturing investments since 2020 and first in per capita investment.

The JLL Capital Markets team was led by senior managing directors Brett Paulsrud and Steve Klein, director Ryan Parker, vice president Hugh Doherty and analyst Libby Horton.

“The joint venture between Wheelock St. Capital and Camber Development created a differentiated product that addresses the growing demand from companies in robotics, energy storage, semiconductor and climate technology sectors,” Paulsrud said. “The property’s location in Bedford provides optimal access to both the engineering talent concentrated in the Boston suburbs and the manufacturing workforce throughout the North Market.”