Dinosaur Capital Nabs $46M for Boston-area Ground-Up Development
It's the Boston suburb's first Class A project in more than two decades.
Dinosaur Capital Partners secured a $45.8 million construction loan for the ground-up development of 7 Hartwell Avenue, a five-story, 130-unit, Class A multifamily property in Lexington, Mass. The project is expected to be finished in 2028.
A partnership between Affinius Capital and Axonic Capital originated the note.
The shovel-ready project is one of Lexington’s first Class A multifamily developments in more than 20 years, according to JLL Capital Markets, which arranged the financing for Dinosaur Capital.
Located at the intersection of Hartwell Avenue and Westview Street, the development will benefit from its location within the Route 128/Route 2 life science corridor. Major employers include Novo Nordisk, Takeda, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Boston Children’s Hospital’s research facility, which is situated directly across from the development site.
The adjacent Route 128 office corridor in Waltham, Mass., comprises approximately 16.9 million square feet of office. It is the global headquarters for Thermo Fisher Scientific and Repligen Corp. Other companies with regional offices in the area include Fresenius Medical Care, AstraZeneca and National Grid.
The JLL Capital Markets Debt Advisory team consisted of Managing Director Anthony Cutone, Director Madeline Joyce and Associates Michael Schwarze and Joe Marinaro.
What’s getting built in Lexington
7 Hartwell Avenue will have a mix of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, including 20 affordable units. The project will also have nearly 400 square feet of retail space to be used as a café with outdoor seating.
Community amenities will include a courtyard with grilling stations, a fitness center, a yoga studio, a resident lounge and coworking lounge. The development will include 132 parking spaces—90 underground and 42 on the surface.
READ ALSO: Top 10 Markets for Multifamily Deliveries in H1 2026
7 Hartwell Avenue is being designed as a sustainable property with an all-electric design, an advanced stormwater management system and proposed rooftop solar panels. The developers are seeking Passive House certification for the project.
The property is roughly 12 miles from downtown Boston. Residents will have access to Route 2, Route 128 and Interstate 95, which are all minutes away from the site. The Alewife MBTA Red Line station is approximately 3 miles from the development, providing direct access to Cambridge, Mass., and downtown Boston.
Office-to-residential conversion also in the works
Dinosaur Capital, a real estate investment and development firm specializing in multifamily in the Boston metro, is also converting 31 Milk St., an 11-story, historic Boston office building into 110 apartments. The office-to-residential conversion calls for 22 of the apartments to be affordable for residents earning up to 60 percent of the area median income. The unit mix includes 40 studio and 52 one-bedroom apartments. Construction is underway and is expected to be completed in 2027. The building’s ground floor will continue to be utilized by the U.S. Postal Service.
Dinosaur Capital acquired the 95,000-square-foot asset in 2025 for $9.6 million from Liberty Bank, according to Yardi Matrix data. The developer has partnered with TOCCI as the construction manager. ICON Architecture is the project’s architect. The development is one of Boston’s largest conversion projects, with a development cost estimated at approximately $40 million.
Affinius and Axonic strategic partnership
The loan marks the sixth transaction to close as part of the previously announced strategic partnership between Affinius and Axonic, which is designed to deliver mid-market first mortgage financing for new development projects, including multifamily and self storage.
The firms announced the strategic partnership in September 2025. Two months later, the Affinius and Axonic partnership provided a $45.2 million construction loan for Deca Cos. to develop Extra Space McKinnon Avenue, a 1,600-unit self storage project in San Francisco. Affinius and Axonic issued the first-mortgage note for the property that is being managed under the Extra Space brand.
