Genzyme Plant Expansion | Allston

kz1000ps

kz1000ps

Senior Member
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
8,720
Reaction score
9,498
bfdec05p42ty0.jpg


Genzyme to begin $150m expansion of Allston plant
Facility to boost capacity and jobs

By Todd Wallack, Globe Staff | September 15, 2007

Genzyme Corp., the Cambridge biotechnology giant, is planning a ground-breaking ceremony Tuesday morning for a $150 million expansion of its Allston manufacturing plant along the Charles River.

A Genzyme spokesman said the work is expected to take two years and will boost the size of the building by nearly two-thirds, to 300,000 square feet. The additional space will be used for offices and manufacturing support, and an underground steam and electrical generation system will be added to power the facility.

The mostly glass addition at 500 Soldiers Field Road will be visible to thousands of drivers daily because of its proximity to the Massachusetts Turnpike's Allston/Cambridge on-ramp. It was designed by Architectural Resources Cambridge, the same firm that worked on the original building.

Genzyme executives plan to add 90 workers to the 400 now at the building.

Tuesday's ceremony is scheduled to feature Governor Deval L. Patrick, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and Genzyme chief executive Henri A. Termeer.

The investment is considered a boost for Boston's efforts to attract more life sciences jobs. The Boston Redevelopment Authority launched a LifeTech Boston Initiative several years ago to attract more bioscience companies. It seeks to create 10,000 life sciences-related jobs by 2010. Dave McLaughlin, the BRA's director of marketing, said the city is on track to meet the goal, partly because of Genzyme.

"It's a great example of a company that had its early success in Boston and remains committed to Boston," McLaughlin said.

The Allston building, finished in 1996, was the first of Genzyme's 17 manufacturing plants worldwide. It produces several drugs to treat rare diseases: Cerezyme for Gaucher disease, Fabrazyme for Fabry disease, and Myozyme for Pompe disease. The plant is also used to package two other products, Aldurazyme, which treats MPS I disease, a genetic disorder; and Thyrogen, a thyroid cancer drug.

Three years ago, Genzyme spent $53 million to boost its manufacturing capacity at the Allston plant so it could produce Myozyme, which is sold in 33 countries. The company, however, is still awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval to begin manufacturing Myozyme there for sale in the United States. The drug, approved by the FDA in April 2006, is now made at a limited-capacity facility in Framingham. It can cost up to $300,000 annually to treat a single patient.

Pompe disease patients lack an enzyme necessary to break down a sugar. The excess sugar is stored in muscle cells, resulting in progressive muscle weakness. About 10,000 people worldwide have the disease, and about 700 of them are treated with Myozyme.

Todd Wallack can be reached at twallack@globe.com.
? Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
Click to expand...

http://www.boston.com/business/tech...yme_to_begin_150m_expansion_of_allston_plant/
 
Rendering...

There is a rendering on page A9 of the Globe if anyone has a scanner.
 
Post-modern self-reflection and self-awareness, but maybe more so that the architects intended? By many accounts, this plant is more well-liked as responding to the influence of the surrounding Harvard architecture than many of Harvard's own new buildings.

So, when its time for an addition, of course they would again follow the Harvard model and design an ill-fitting, modernistic interpretation of the form!
 
...was nice while it lasted.
 
I assume the rendering reflects the mass, and not the final color scheme. Otherwise, the design looks like some architectural scrim that diminishes both the original building and the new addition. Maybe it will look okay at 10 PM at night.
 
No neighborhood opposition to this plan? No calls for public parkland or access to the Charles, calls for community space in the new addition or road reconstruction and realignment from nearby neighborhood groups?
 
atlantaden said:
No neighborhood opposition to this plan? No calls for public parkland or access to the Charles, calls for community space in the new addition or road reconstruction and realignment from nearby neighborhood groups?
Click to expand...

The benefits of being shielded on all sides by Harvard .....
 
I have a question about this project. I recall that Harvard beat out Genzyme for the ground lease for this land. So wy is Genzyme expanding? Is it worthwhile to build a lab building if Harvard gives them them the boot in 10-20 years?
 
chumbolly said:
I have a question about this project. I recall that Harvard beat out Genzyme for the ground lease for this land. So wy is Genzyme expanding? Is it worthwhile to build a lab building if Harvard gives them them the boot in 10-20 years?
Click to expand...

The Harvard 50 year plan shows that property and the hotel not being touched. In the 50 year plan, Harvard still hasn't touched its Allston Landing acreage.
 
stellarfun said:
The Harvard 50 year plan shows that property and the hotel not being touched. In the 50 year plan, Harvard still hasn't touched its Allston Landing acreage.
Click to expand...

I'll be 71 when harvard considers building on this land. That is an extremely scary thought to me, yet at the same time exciting to see harvard (and technology for that matter. Maybe the internet will be completely neural or something by then--matrix???)in 50 years.
 
palindrome said:
I'll be 71 when harvard considers building on this land. That is an extremely scary thought to me, yet at the same time exciting to see harvard (and technology for that matter. Maybe the internet will be completely neural or something by then--matrix???)in 50 years.
Click to expand...

Rather than sidetrack the Genzyme thread, I'll post a reply in the Harvard Allston thread.
 
In my opinion, this is the stupidest, ugliest recent building in Greater Boston. It surpasses even that stack of brick cafeteria trays in Charlestown.

Pretentious, clumsy, inept and misshapen. And grossly out of scale; it's made entirely out of boring elements that are much too big. Arches too big, pointless gables. A frenzied catalog of superfluity.

Everything about this building is a cliche. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Really stupid.



Did I mention that it looked dated the moment its shape started to congeal?
 
ablarc said:
In my opinion, this is the stupidest, ugliest recent building in Greater Boston. It surpasses even that stack of brick cafeteria trays in Charlestown.
Click to expand...

Yikes, ablarc!

justin once praised Hauser Hall as a good example of PoMo because it "intelligently recycled the past." I've always found Genzyme to fit this bill as well.

Do you take issue with the building's aura of gravitas, by referencing Romanesque. This is a manufacturing facility, and as an industrial building, it's a throw-back to older examples of this typology -- power plants (there's one right across the river), factories, and assembly facilities (there's an old Ford plant down the Charles in Cambridge).

Considering what it is, I think it looks better than it could.

Do you think it call too much attention to itself?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top