Why do smart companies make such dumb real estate moves? With its stunning decision to move its headquarters back to Cambridge from the suburbs, Biogen Idec is poised to give a fresh twist to that age-old dilemma.

A year after moving its headquarters from Kendall Square out to the wilds of Weston, Biogen Idec is on the move again. The company’s new chief executive, George Scangos, has taken a look around and decided to move its corporate offices into a pair of yet-to-be built Cambridge buildings.

The move will cost Biogen Idec tens of millions over the next decade – while causing untold disruptions in both its corporate operations and the personal lives of its employees.

Who knows, maybe Scangos will someday be viewed as a visionary. My guess, though, is that Biogen Idec is more likely to join the rocket scientists (really, no joke), security regulators and blue chip consultants who became the butt of jokes after making spectacularly stupid real estate decisions.

“Something that supposedly made all the sense in the world three years ago now makes no sense at all,” mused Bob Richards, president of Richards Barry Joyce & Partners. “No doubt, it’s a very expensive mistake for Biogen Idec.”

Back And Forth

The Biogen Idec saga began almost three years ago, when then-CEO James Mullen decided the company should keep its researchers in Cambridge, but move its headquarters to a newly built Weston office complex off Route 128. Compared to expanding in pricey and ever more tightly packed Cambridge, the move promised to save Biogen Idec a bundle.

While Weston is no Kendall Square, it was hardly a jump into the wilderness. A number of other major industry players including Shire and AstraZeneca had already made the jump to nearby Lexington and Waltham, respectively.

But having barely settled into his new Weston office himself, Scangos began exploring an executive move back to Cambridge. The company made the decision official last month, announcing plans to lease two new buildings after they are built and opened in 2013.

The move, in turn, is all about reuniting the company’s executive suite – from top managers to marketers – with its researchers on a single campus, according to the company. There’s a convenience factor at play here – instead of driving a half hour into Cambridge to meet with its star scientists, the company’s top dogs will now be able to walk across the hall.

But there’s also likely a keeping-up-with-the-Jones’ factor here – Cambridge has prestige, as a growing number of international pharmaceutical and life sciences giants set up shop in town.

Corporate goals and synergy are all well and good, but Biogen may be falling into a trap common to companies and organizations that have made major real estate missteps. One ignores the basic fundamentals of the real estate market at one’s own peril.

We are not talking chump change here, even for a company like Biogen Idec. Biogen is now committed to shelling out $340 million in lease payments over 15 years for the privilege of having a headquarters with a Cambridge address.

History Repeating

For Biogen, the cost of moving back to Cambridge over staying in Weston figures out to an additional $6 million annually. Given another dozen or so years on its lease for its Weston space, which it is now on the hook to pay for and fill, that totals roughly $60 million. That’s a lot to pay make sure the folks in the top offices have views of Kendall Square.

There is also the disruption factor. Biogen Idec just came off a years-long and highly distracting fight with investment mogul Carl Icahn, who wanted to seize control of the company and remake it to his liking. But there’s no rest for the weary, as the company is now poised to jump from the frying pan into the pressure cooker of a major real estate relocation.

The move is a corporate logistical challenge in and of itself, not to mention for the employees who have relocated to, and bought homes in, the suburbs the past few years.

Sadly, other companies, in their hubris, have made similar real estate mistakes, only to regret them later.

The classic case is of consulting firm Arthur D. Little, which sold its long-time Cambridge headquarters in the late 1990s in order to move next door to Watertown. The company soon realized it was a boneheaded move to leave Cambridge, but compounded the mistake by then leasing back its old headquarters at a premium, losing millions. The firm later filed for bankruptcy.

The scientists at Draper Labs in Cambridge may have helped develop the guidance system that put a man on the moon, but when it came to real estate, they were equally clueless. Draper missed a deadline in 2000 to renew a lease for its Cambridge headquarters for a bargain basement rate of $3-per-square-foot – all the way through 2051. It was a costly error, one that triggered millions more per year in added real estate costs, given that space in Cambridge can go for 15 times that number now.

And let’s not forget the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The feds, who are all over companies who mess with the numbers, “underestimated” the cost of fitting out new office space in Boston, Washington and New York. In fact, the SEC missed the mark by a whopping $48 million, according to a 2005 report.

Sure, if you are building the next wonder drug or rocket engine, maybe leasing commercial office space seems like just another mundane detail for the peons to work out.

But the fact is, messing up can be very costly indeed.