The landlord, TV Marlborough LLC, was represented in the lease negotiations by exclusive listing agent New Dover Associates of Framingham, with the assignment handled by New Dover president Scott Hughes, SVP Stephen Bradley and associate John Hughes. T3 Realty Advisors principal Gregory Hoffmeister brokered the deal on behalf of Xtalic, a growing company that provides nanostructured alloys for use in the hard metal coatings industry. Financial terms of the agreement were not released.

Xtalic is taking a combination of office and research space at 260 Cedar Hill St., although the exact mix was not unveiled. An affiliate of Candee Investments of Lincoln, TV Marlborough acquired the building two years ago as part of its $6.5-million purchase of 260, 270 and 274 Cedar Hill St.

According to data from Jones Lang LaSalle, the flex/R&D sector in I-495 West is coming off a robust 2007 in which the market of six million sf posted nearly 200,000 sf of positive net absorption, including a gain of 39,000 sf in the final quarter. The vacancy level remains high at 20%, above the suburban Boston average of 18.3%, but it is below the 22.7% rate seen in neighboring I-495 North, a flex/R&D submarket of 9.3 million sf. At $10.76 per sf, the I-495 West submarket is slightly stronger rental wise than the average suburban asking mark of $10.68 per sf. I-495 West is trailing only the $16.76 per sf average in the I-495 Massachusetts Turnpike submarket and the $11.61 per sf seen in the Northwest tier.