Pushed by high costs in Cam­bridge, fast-grow­ing Deci­bel makes a pi­o­neer­ing leap to Fen­way

Not long ago, Deci­bel CEO Steve Holtz­man gath­ered his 20-mem­ber staff to­geth­er to check out new digs in Fen­way, a Boston neigh­bor­hood just across the Charles Riv­er from Cam­bridge, which has emerged in the last few years as per­haps the hottest sin­gle biotech hub on the plan­et.

It had every­thing he was look­ing for, and less.

It had a good feel, he says, high­light­ing a neigh­bor­hood that has been made over to in­clude res­i­den­tial space, re­tail and of­fices. There was lots to do for the young staff. It was close to pub­lic trans­porta­tion. The Long­wood Med­ical cam­pus was near­by, where he plans to do col­lab­o­ra­tive work, as was Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic, where he’s on the board. And he was hap­py to jump in as the pi­o­neer biotech in Fen­way, tak­ing 32,000 square feet of space in Van Ness, lo­cat­ed at 1325 Boyl­ston Street, for a staff that is slat­ed to quadru­ple in size and hit about 100 by the end of next year.

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