SEATTLE — Kilroy Realty Corporation (KRC) has acquired a 140,605-square-foot life sciences facility in Seattle for $106 million. The four-story facility is located at 401 Terry Ave. North in the city’s South Lake Union neighborhood. It sits adjacent to KRC’s Westlake Terry campus. Notable tenants in the surrounding area include Amazon.com, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The LEED-Gold property was developed in 2003. It was one of only five life science facilities developed in the Puget Sound region during the past 10 years. The building is fully leased to Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) through 2021. ISB is a foremost strategy developer for the fields of biology and medicine. KRC was represented by Peter Roth of Allen Matkins law firm. Joseph Delaney and Bryan Helfer of the Foster Pepper law firm represented the seller, Vulcan Realty Corp., in this transaction.
BOSTON — Senior Housing Properties Trust (NYSE: SNH) has acquired the two-building headquarters of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Boston for approximately $1.1 billion. The pair of 15-story towers includes biomedical research facilities, corporate office space, structured parking and street-level retail space for a total of 1.65 million square feet. The property, leased to Vertex for the next 15 years, officially opened last month. Located in Boston’s Seaport District, the facilities will consolidate approximately 1,300 employees from 10 Vertex offices in Cambridge, Mass. “The acquisition of this state-of-the-art property, which is ideally located in Boston’s fastest growing downtown submarket and one of the nation’s top investment markets, represents a unique opportunity to further diversify SNH’s portfolio and increase our exposure to the medical office building segment,” says David Hegarty, president and COO of Newton, Mass.-based SNH. The trust predicts that the transaction will be immediately accretive to normalized funds from operations (FFO) per share by 6 to 8 cents per year. The deal is expected to close in the first half of this year. “Post-closing, SNH will remain solidly positioned with a strong balance sheet and committed to its disciplined strategy of acquiring high-quality, premier properties that create significant value for SNH …
LOS ANGELES – The 103,500-square-foot Life Sciences building at Loyola Marymount University has broken ground in Los Angeles. The $110-million building will serve as a teaching, research and laboratory facility for the Seaver College of Science and Engineering’s biology, chemistry and natural science departments. It will maintain a two-year construction schedule. C.W. Driver will act as the general contractor, while CO Architects will serve as the designer. The building is aiming for LEED-Silver certification.
LOS ANGELES – The 103,500-square-foot Life Sciences building at Loyola Marymount University has broken ground in Los Angeles. The $110-million building will serve as a teaching, research and laboratory facility for the Seaver College of Science and Engineering’s biology, chemistry and natural science departments. It will maintain a two-year construction schedule. C.W. Driver will act as the general contractor, while CO Architects will serve as the designer. The building is aiming for LEED-Silver certification.
RICHMOND — The Lingerfelt Cos. has started work on the third phase of BioTech 8, a six-story tower within downtown Richmond's 34-acre Virginia BioTechnology Research Park. The project will complete a $100 million, three-building headquarters complex for Health Diagnostics Laboratory Inc., (HDL) one of the country's fastest growing health management companies. The project totals 276,000 square feet, including a four-story, 485-space parking deck. According to Ryan Lingerfelt, a principal at Lingerfelt Cos., the third phase is scheduled for completion in spring 2014. “Since partnering with HDL in 2009, development has been fast paced,” says Lingerfelt. “HDL is a significant complement to our growing health care development portfolio.” The Phase III BioTech 8 expansion will bring the total development at biotech park to more than 1.2 million square feet. The park currently has a mix of more than 60 public and private bioscience companies, including three publicly traded firms. Lingerfelt recently completed several other local healthcare-related projects including OrthoVirginia, a $25 million, 70,000-square-foot facility in Chesterfield County for OrthoVirginia orthopedic specialists and HCA Virginia CJW Sports Medicine; the Virginia Community Healthcare Association headquarters, a two-story building; and the 100,000-square-foot Bon Secours Heart Institute. — Liz Burlingame
Despite the challenging and uncertain economic climate in New Jersey where the unemployment rate is now at its highest level in three decades and major companies are placing large blocks of space on the market, there is at least one encouraging sign of progress and glimmer of hope. Due to a number of factors, small and mid-sized biotech companies are choosing Central New Jersey — and areas adjacent to the Interstate 287/78 corridor — to base their operations. Several companies have located their headquarters or expanded branch functions in the I-287/78 corridor during 2012. In Bridgewater, Allergan leased 93,000 square feet, Dendreon leased 39,940 square feet, while Aptalis Pharma expanded into a total of 50,000 square feet. In Basking Ridge, Celgene renewed its 90,000-square-foot lease and Ipsen leased 32,500 square feet. Outside the I-287/78 corridor, Watson Pharmaceuticals recently expanded into an additional 32,000 square feet in Parsippany, and leased 32,000 square feet of lab/administrative space in North Brunswick. A recent study from BioNJ, a 300-member organization founded in 1994 that is focused on advancing the growth and prosperity of New Jersey’s biotechnology cluster, reinforces this trend and paints a vivid picture of its impact over the past few years. The …
GERMANTOWN, MD. — Blacksburg, Va.-based Intrexon, a biotech company that produces products across multiple industries like human therapeutics, protein production, industrial products, agricultural biotechnology and animal science, has signed a 55,000-square-foot lease for laboratory and office space at 20358 Seneca Meadows Pkwy. in Germantown. Rockville, Md.-based Scheer Partners represented Intrexon in the lease transaction. Germantown-based Minkoff Development is the landlord for 20358 Seneca Meadows Pkwy.
RICHMOND, VA. — Richmond-based Lingerfelt Development has started construction on the $100 million, 300,000-square-foot BioTech 8 building, a three-building headquarters for Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc. (HDL), located within the 34-acre Virginia BioTechnology Research Park in downtown Richmond. After demolishing the BioTech 3 building, the company will construct Phase I of the property, which will include a 112,000-square-foot, six-story wet lab biotechnology building. Completion is slated for December 2012. A second phase, including an additional 112,000-square-foot, six-story tower, will begin in 2013. When fully completed, both phases plus HDL's existing building will total 300,000 square feet.
BOSTON — A joint venture plans to develop the 413,536-square-foot Longwood Center, a life sciences and biotechnology facility in Boston. The center will be located in the Longwood Medical Area of the city, which also serves as home to Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, among others. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will anchor the property, leasing 154,000 square feet of space. The joint venture consists of Clarion Partners, National Development, Charles River Realty Investors and Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
BOSTON — Genzyme Corp., a biotechnology company, has signed an 82,490-square-foot lease renewal at 55 Cambridge Pkwy. in Boston. 55 Cambridge is a 275,000-square-foot, Class A office building, located on the Charles River. Joe Fallon of Cassidy Turley FHO represented the tenant in the transaction. John Miller of Lincoln Property Group represented the landlord, Invesco.