Facing unending competition from Cambridge and Route 128 West, Hub officials scored a rare victory on the life sciences front in convincing BioDefense Corp. to take 32,500 sf at 12 Channel St., bringing the company in to the Seaport District from Lexington. Besides praising the coordinated effort of the city, which owns 12 Channel St. as part of its Marine Industrial Park, M&G associate Robert Kinlin calls the nine-story, 297,000-sf building "an excellent fit for BioDefense Corp. to expand its business." The biotech concern will have an extra 15,000 sf in the new headquarters.

"Mayor Tom Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority have been terrific to work with from the start," says Kinlin, who represented BioDefense in partnership with M&G SVP John Carroll. Agencies involved from the city included the Economic Development & Industrial Corp. The 191-acre, 3.1-million-sf industrial park is now 95% occupied by a diverse range of companies, including Advanced Electronics, Harpoon Brewery, Northcoast Seafoods and the world headquarters of Au Bon Pain.

M&G's Boston brokerage group also handled renewals totaling 56,000 sf at 101 Arch St. in the Financial District. The 21-story, 407,000-sf office tower is owned by ING Clarion, which was represented in the deals by Andrew Maher and Peter Conlin of CBRE/New England. The largest of the renewals was the Workers Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau, which has just under 23,000 sf. In addition, the Automobile Insurers Bureau committed to stay in 17,000 sf, while the Insurance Fraud Bureau renewed for more than 15,000 sf of space.

M&G EVP Ronald Perry, SVP Francis Durand and assistant vice president Patrick Buckley negotiated the renewal terms for the 101 Arch St. tenants. The brokerage team cited 101 Arch St.'s mix of on-site management and security, food service and direct access to Boston's subway network as being among the reasons their clients opted to remain in the tower, which opened in 1988.