Jessica Hughes: Customer Value and Collaborative Success in Boston

“Valuing our customers and showing them how we value them is the most important thing we do here at Tishman Speyer,” says Jessica Hughes, Regional Director for the Boston region of Tishman Speyer.

One way Tishman Speyer exemplifies its values is through collaborative projects and local connections, embodied by its recent developments in the city of Boston, from life sciences to residential and large mixed-use spaces.

Building Boston community

“In 2019, we competed in a worldwide RFP that was led by Harvard University to select a developer for the first phase of the Enterprise Research Campus,” Hughes explains.

As early as 2011, Harvard had been floating the idea of developing a university-owned parcel in Boston neighborhood Allston Landing North into an innovation district. The vision was to create a center for innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship that supports not only the university but also the city of Boston and the community at large.

The RFP was a tall order, entailing university-focused space, commercial businesses, residential and retail. It asked to transform what was once an industrial rail yard into a green, pedestrian-friendly space focused on business and research while also leaving room for developments such as hubs for international companies, as well as spaces for startups, incubators and residential living.

Innovating with Harvard University

Harvard’s innovation district would be a multi-use space, requiring Tishman Speyer to seek local collaborations that serve the community and campus.

“The Enterprise Research Campus at Harvard would not be possible without the partnerships that we’ve put together,” Hughes explains. “The first partnership is with Harvard University. Then there’s our professional teams, who have done an amazing job. There’s the city of Boston. There are our community partners. This is a passionate local community that has high expectations for what’s built in their neighborhood.”

Tishman Speyer’s proposal envisioned taking the underutilized site and creating a vibrant and inclusive mixed-use neighborhood. That meant expanding public open spaces, including two acres of publicly accessible green space, landscaped plazas and public art to welcome in pedestrians and community members from the surrounding areas.

The plan included a 900,000-square-foot building, with research space for Harvard, offices, a hotel, retail, restaurants, a conference center and rental housing, a portion of which will be affordable. Speaking to the element of incorporating community, the plan included a robust, affordable housing component, exceeding Boston’s required 13%.

Similarly, the development included provisions to boost diversity, equity and inclusion across the development, with plans to dedicate a portion of retail space for local minority- and women-owned small businesses.

In 2019, Tishman Speyer and Breakthrough Properties were selected as the designated developers for Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus (ERC). But the partnership didn’t stop there.

The 105 By Breakthrough

“One of the opportunities that I really saw was that we had the ability to break into the life science business,” says Hughes. “Tishman Speyer had traditionally just owned office buildings.”

The same year Tishman Speyer and Breakthrough Properties were awarded Harvard’s ERC, they purchased a land site in Seaport, “a neighborhood that we had real conviction in,” Hughes explains, and that became home to The 105 By Breakthrough.

On the A Street Corridor and coming in at 263,500 square feet, “The 105 By Breakthrough is a project that we are all very proud of,” says Hughes.

The building delivers state-of-the-art lab space for life science research and a flexible, thoughtfully designed space that welcomes guests to linger and collaborate. The flagship Breakthrough Properties development “delivered in the fall of 2022, fully leased, under budget and on time,” Hughes says.

Instead of cloistering its research away from the community, The 105 By Breakthrough was built to foster transparency. The first two floors were created using a transparent, uninterrupted glass wall that brings in natural light and invites the surrounding community to take a look at the work taking place inside.

In a nod to its Boston heritage, the upper levels of The 105 By Breakthrough include glazed terracotta, common to area architecture, punctuated by floor-to-ceiling windows.

“It was really wonderful to see the company come together in real time, based on a project that we were able to do here in Boston,” recalls Hughes.

The value of collaboration

Hughes joined Tishman Speyer in 2018, but she’s been living the company’s values long before she walked into the office. Day to day, she is responsible for operations in the Boston region, which includes acquisitions, development and asset management. Even when off the clock, she finds ways to collaborate and stay highly involved in the Boston community.

In fact, Hughes serves as a board member at the Boston Center for the Arts and A Better City and is an advisory board member of ULI (Urban Land Institute) Boston. She is also President of NAOIP’s Commercial Real Estate Development Association, Massachusetts chapter. In 2021, Hughes was honored in the “Power 50: The Movement Makers” in the Boston Business Journal.

It’s that striving toward collaboration that inspires projects like the Harvard University ERC and The 105 By Breakthrough and a full portfolio of other projects, including offices, labs, residential and more.

“I think the Breakthrough strategy of really combining that real estate expertise with the entrepreneurial spirit and the life science relationships—the ability to do all those things under one roof with a unified team—I don’t think there’s anyone who does it better than Tishman Speyer,” Hughes says.