3 hours ago - Business
Requiem for a VC office park
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The East Coast used to have its own version of Sand Hill Road, but it's about to be rezoned out of existence.
Catch up quick: The area was nicknamed Mount Money, a collection of office parks perched above a reservoir in Waltham, Massachusetts. Just off of Route 128.
- It was the home of VC firms like Greylock, CRV, Battery Ventures, Matrix Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, and many others.
- If you were a Boston-area founder raising money, it was your first — and maybe only — stop.
Fast forward: Firms began leaving over a decade ago.
- Some relocated to Boston, mirroring the behavior of Silicon Valley firms that opened San Francisco offices. Some failed. Some essentially switched coasts entirely.
- Today, there's seemingly no venture left in the Waltham office parks, although there are a small number of PE firms like Webster Equity Partners and Windjammer Capital.
State of play: Earlier this month, Waltham's City Council overrode a mayoral veto to allow new mixed-use development at one of the office parks, called Bay Colony Corporate Center.
- Bay Colony is relatively vacant right now, judging by a visit Axios made yesterday. One entire brick-and-glass building sits empty, while others are clearly below capacity. Parking garages — including one with the "largest garage-mounted solar canopy in the U.S." — are fairly barren.
- An exception was a building whose tenants include defense-tech giant Anduril, which uses the space for both offices and production.
- Given the City Council vote, the former venture capital hub is likely to become home to new apartments and slop bowl chains.
The bottom line: Mount Money has met its maker.
