SAN DIEGO — IQHQ Inc., a developer of life sciences real estate with offices in Boston and San Diego, will build the San Diego Research and Development District (The RaDD), a $1.5 billion campus that will be located along San Diego’s waterfront.
IQHQ has secured various permits and entitlements and plans to break ground on the first phase of the project later this week. Completion of Phase I is scheduled for summer 2023.
The RaDD will span eight acres and three city blocks, making it the largest urban commercial waterfront site on the California coast, according to the development team. Preliminary plans call for lab, office and retail space, specific amounts of which were not disclosed.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the project will consist of several mid-rise buildings and a 17-story tower, as well as a museum and several acres of green space and rooftop decks. The paper also reports that locally based developer Manchester Financial Group will retain ownership of a portion of the site and will develop a hotel on the campus.
“The RaDD is exciting on so many levels — not only does it represent our first acquisition in San Diego, which IQHQ is proud to call home — but also an opportunity to create the first truly urban waterfront campus dedicated to the advancement of life sciences,” says Tracy Murphy, president of IQHQ. “Once complete, the project will spark and define the region’s commercial life sciences market in San Diego, similar to that of the Seaport District in Boston.”
The development team also notes that San Diego’s population of life sciences employees has grown by 82 percent over the last decade, making it the third-largest market of this type in the country behind Boston and San Francisco.
IQHQ has developed multiple projects in both of the nation’s top life sciences market. These include the two-building Fenway Center project in Boston and the 213,000-square-foot South City Station in San Francisco.
— Taylor Williams