"Because of the overall economy, tenants are being very cautions," relayed Flaherty, adding, "There is a big disconnect where people seem to think everything is falling apart." Opening the CM&G-sponsored program, Flaherty said many tenants fail to recognize the solid fundamentals of Cambridge and its dearth of space, especially for class A buildings in Kendall Square, a constituency whose vacancy rate is a thin 5.8%. "It's very tight right now," Flaherty said. "If you are a tenant wanting to stay in (Kendall Square), you're probably going to have to look at a build-to-suit." That is especially true, he explained, for companies needing more than one floor, such as Forrester Research, out looking for 200,000sf.

Flaherty was joined at the Cambridge overview by CM&G investment chief Lisa Campoli and former company staffer Daniel O'Connell, now the state's Secretary of Housing and Economic Development in Governor Deval Patrick's administration. The guest speaker noted that he grew up a few blocks from the event in a three-decker, back when Kendall Square was a blighted industrial district bereft of the global pharmaceutical and technology companies there today--a "super-cluster" O'Connell cited as a key reason that the new economy "augers well for Cambridge."

The city, he said, "has gone through the transition and is looking very strong going forward." O'Connell also predicted passage this week of Patrick's $1 billion bond bill to support the life sciences sector, a measure the secretary said would be especially beneficial to his hometown. The bill would provide $750 million for biotech-related capital expenditures and infrastructure. Another $250 million would be used to offset anticipated cutbacks in National Institutes of Health funding, providing a financing source to keep emerging firms from fleeing to rivals such as California and North Carolina. The initiatives "give us better tools to work with" than competing markets, O'Connell offered.