by Craig M. Douglas, Boston Business Journal, 04.14.2011

The Broad Institute of Cambridge is floating $375 million in bonds in part to finance the construction of a new research facility near its current headquarters near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus.

Details concerning the new facility were not disclosed as of Thursday; a Broad Institute spokeswoman said the project’s planning phases are well underway, but a formal presentation was not immediately available.

Nonetheless, the bond sale’s proceeds will mostly be used “to construct a large facility, including both research and office space, in Cambridge as well as a connector with the institute’s existing headquarters” at 7 Cambridge Center, according to a new credit analysis by Moody’s Investors Service. Roughly $9 million of the bond proceeds will be used to retire existing debt, Moody’s said.

Spun out of MIT in 2009, the Broad Institute is an independently run researcher and developer of genomic and biomedical technologies. The outfit operates in collaboration with MIT, Harvard University and a number of Harvard-affiliated hospitals.

Operating revenue totaled $267 million in 2010, and the institute has budgeted for some $175 million in sponsored research this year, up from $106 million in fiscal 2006. Considerable funding comes from the National Institutes of Health. Broad employs nine core faculty members and over 150 associate-faculty employees.

In 2008, the institute was awarded a $400 million endowment gift from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. That money will be allocated in three installments for fiscal years 2013, 2016 and 2020.