SAN DIEGO-Locally based life sciences property REIT BioMed Realty Trust Inc. has acquired nearly $40 million worth of new properties, including a $24.9 million acquisition in the Torrey Pines submarket of San Diego and two other properties in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina for $14.7 million. The Torrey Pines property is a life science research and development facility at 3525 John Hopkins Court totaling approximately 48,300 square feet. The Research Triangle facilities are the 48,400-square-foot Patriot Science Center laboratory and office building at 3908 Patriot Dr. in Durham, NC and a 30,600-square-foot life science research building at 3000 Weston Parkway in Cary, NC.

The Torrey Pines building is 100% leased until 2018 to the University of California, San Diego. It is at the corner of Genesee Avenue and John Jay Hopkins Drive, adjacent to BioMed's 72,200-square-foot University Science Center. Torrey Pines is the largest life science submarket in San Diego and home to some of the world's leading research institutes, including UCSD, The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, The Salk Institute, the Scripps Research Institute, and The J. Craig Venter Institute. The acquisition increases BioMed's total presence in San Diego to approximately 1.9 million rentable square feet.

In the Research Triangle, BioMed paid $8.6 million for the Patriot Science Center and $6.1 million for the 3000 Weston Parkway building. In aggregate, the two properties are 88% leased.

Alan D. Gold, BioMed's chairman and CEO, commented on the deals in an announcement: "3525 John Hopkins Court represents a premier location and facility in Torrey Pines, one of the most important centers of biotechnology innovation in the world, and affords us the opportunity to further expand and enhance our relationship with UCSD, a preeminent life science research institution."

Gold said that the REIT's investment activity in 2010 totaled approximately $675 million, comprising almost 1.7 million rentable square feet of space, which was approximately 95% leased at acquisition, and over one million square feet available for future development.

The company's 2010 acquisitions included three laboratory and office buildings totaling 300,000 square feet that it bought in December for $51.5 million from Collins Development Co. The three properties―Sorrento Plaza, Sorrento West and BC Sorrento―are research & development space with lab and office build-outs in the Sorrento Valley submarket of San Diego.

"In addition, we continue to see positive traction on the leasing front, most notably with three new leases representing 108,000 square feet at the Pacific Research Center in the San Francisco Bay Area during the fourth quarter," Gold said.