Vertex’s old headquarters to be remade by developer

Life sciences developer Biomed Realty Trust said Monday it is taking back about 313,000 square feet of office and lab space on three Cambridge sites that it had leased to Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and will be redeveloping them for other biotech companies.

Vertex, which consolidated most of its area operations on the South Boston waterfront early last year, will pay San Diego-based Biomed a termination fee of $14 million. Vertex moved its operations to Fan Pier on the waterfront in stages, but now the Cambridge sites have been completely vacated.

The deal will enable Biomed to begin renovating the buildings. They include two lab and office buildings at 200 Sidney St. and 40 Erie St., with a total of 239,000 square feet, that were leased to Vertex through this December, and another 21,000 square feet at 21 Erie St. that was leased to Vertex through May 2017.

Biomed said it will update the buildings' entrances and lobbies, and add indoor and outdoor collaboration spaces and fitness centers. The work will begin immediately and the sites should be ready to be leased to new tenants starting in September, the developer said.

Bill Kane, the Boston-based senior vice president of Biomed, which owns more than 3 million square feet of office and lab space in the Boston area, said the former Vertex space could be ideal for as many as a half dozen mid-sized companies.

"The space had always been designed for multi-tenant purposes, which really fits into the mode of the industry right now," Kane said. "This is really an opportunity for the mid-sized, venture-backed companies. We're very mindful of the underlying ecosystem that makes Cambridge the thriving place it is."

Vertex continues to lease 291,000 square feet of office space from Biomed at 675 West Kendall St. in Cambridge's Kendall Square, but that space is now being subleased to several other companies, including Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. and the Genzyme division of Sanofi SA. Vertex also leases space from Biomed in San Diego.

"This agreement reflects the last space we have remaining in Cambridge," said Vertex spokesman Zach Barber.