Athenahealth Buying Arsenal on the Charles in Watertown from Harvard University

The Arsenal on the Charles will have a new owner, as Athenahealth has an agreement with Harvard University to purchase the 11-building complex along Arsenal Street in Watertown.

The company, specializing in cloud-based health care services, already has its headquarters in the former U.S. Army facility, and will purchase the other building for $168.5 million, according to a report in the Boston Herald.

Carolyn Reckman, Athenahealth's director of environment, told the Herald that the purchase will give the 15-year-old company the flexibility and space that it needs to grow.

The Arsenal on the Charles is home to more than 20 other businesses and groups, including the Bright Horizons and Harvard Business School Publishing. Athenahealth uses 330,000 square feet of space at the Arsenal, and there is about 100,000 square feet of empty space. The company will honor the leases of the current tenants, Reckman told the Herald.

“We have enough space in what we lease today ... to take us into early 2014,” Reckman said, according to the Herald.

Harvard purchased the Arsenal for $162.6 million in 2001. The Arsenal first became a military munitions manufacturing site in 1816.

Read the entire Boston Herald article here.