News

10 Nov 2006

DLA Piper client Lyme Properties wins 2006 US EPA Phoenix Award

Press Release

(BOSTON) - Lyme Properties, a client of DLA Piper US LLP, has won the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2006 Phoenix Award for excellence in brownfield redevelopment, for its Kendall Square redevelopment project.  DLA Piper advised Lyme Properties on its redevelopment strategy for Kendall Square.

The Phoenix Award was created by the EPA in 1997 to honor individuals and groups working to solve the critical environmental challenge of transforming blighted and contaminated areas into productive new uses.   It is widely recognized as the premier acknowledgement of excellence in brownfield redevelopment. 

The 2006 Phoenix Award winners represent outstanding brownfield projects from each of the 10 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regions.

“I am proud we were able to assist Lyme Properties in this unique and valuable initiative,” said Greg Peterson, Real Estate partner in DLA Piper’s Boston office. “Our combined efforts have turned Kendall Square into a world-class center for life science research and innovation in Cambridge.”

Lyme Properties is the largest life sciences property developer in New England, and the third largest in the United States. Lyme Properties specializes in the acquisition, development, and leasing of first-quality life science and mixed-used properties located in prime educational, research, and medical centers.

In 1998, when Lyme Properties purchased the Kendall Square property, approximately 10 acres next to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, it was the polluted site of a former manufactured gas plant.  Lyme’s systematic cleanup of the site used  an innovative method of solidifying tars and other pollutants in a giant concrete matrix (a method first used to construct the whitewater kayak venue at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics). This technique permanently "freezes" the pollutants, eliminating any risk to the Charles River or to future occupants of the site.

Already occupying the Kendall Square site are the new world headquarters of Genzyme Corporation (a building that itself won a LEEDS Gold award for green design and construction); another biotech lab and office building; and new apartments housing several hundred people. In the future Kendall Square will also house one additional biotech and lab building, a large performing arts center, a public skating rink and garden and a public boat ramp giving access to the Charles River Basin

Lyme Properties and their Kendall Square redevelopment will be honored at an awards ceremony along with the other Phoenix Award recipients during the Brownfields 2006 Conference in Boston in November.  At the conference, all award winners will showcase their projects with case study presentations and exhibits.