Research Campus Reaches Full Capacity Within Mere Months
Wareham Development recently leased 78,000 square feet on several floors of EmeryStation West to Novartis Institutes and Gritstone will also expand there with 35,000 square feet, resulting in 100% occupancy.
EMERYVILLE, CA—EmeryStation West is an addition to Wareham Development’s 2 million-square-foot EmeryStation research and tech campus. Its seven levels of laboratory and office space sit above a two-story transit center and 125-car parking podium.
Wareham Development recently executed a lease for 78,000 square feet on several floors of the newly constructed 265,000-square-foot EmeryStation West. Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research plans to move into a new office/laboratory on the eighth and ninth floors later this year.
Switzerland-based company Novartis has had an Emeryville presence since it bought the Chiron Corporation, another long-term Wareham tenant, more than a decade ago.
“Several divisions of Novartis have been domiciled in various Wareham properties over the years,” says Geoffrey B. Sears, Wareham partner. “We are delighted to continue the relationship and welcome Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research to EmeryStation West.”
Wareham Development also signed a 35,000-square-foot lease to Gritstone Oncology Inc., an existing tenant of Wareham Development. Gritstone will move and expand its current 13,000-square-foot Emeryville headquarters at Wareham’s EmeryStation I building into a new laboratory and office on the third floor at EmeryStation West.
“Novartis and Gritstone are both doing very important work in their respective fields and we’re delighted they’ve chosen EmeryStation West to do that work,” Sears tells GlobeSt.com. “This also means the building has been fully leased within just a month or so of project completion.”
The new East Bay/Transbay transit center at the street level will serve Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor commuter route from Sacramento to San Jose. Bus bays allow passengers to hop off trains and access last-mile transit options including AC Transit to San Francisco or elsewhere, to the free EmeryGoRound shuttle to BART and around Emeryville or to taxis, limos, car and bike shares.
The Bay Area’s life sciences cluster has grown at a far greater rate than most markets in the country, according to a recent report by CBRE. Between 2014 and 2017, the region’s life sciences employment jumped 13.3%, much faster than the 2.9% national average and behind only Boston/Cambridge.
“The focus is on talent,” said Dino Perazzo, executive vice president leading CBRE’s Bay Area life sciences practice. “The Bay Area’s talent pool is as large and refined as anywhere in the world. The combination of top-notch science and high-tech labor continues to draw massive corporate research capital, pushing the life sciences market from risk to stability and attracting much more real estate investment.”
Lab vacancy below 2% in primary submarkets has pushed rents 10% higher during the past year in sought-after submarkets such as the North Peninsula, which includes booming South San Francisco–the so-called birthplace of biotech.
A record $4.9 billion in venture capital funding for the Bay Area life sciences industry, as well as an active IPO market, likely will keep market fundamentals very tight in the Bay Area, says CBRE. At the same time, large high-tech companies are crowding out life sciences companies in other submarkets, causing firms to migrate south from San Francisco and north from Silicon Valley to the already-tight Peninsula.
Wareham Development was represented by the Kidder Mathews team of Timothy Mason, James Bennett and Eric Bluestein in both transactions. Novartis was represented by Newmark Knight Frank. Gritstone was represented by Gregg Walker and Grant Yeatman of JLL.
The project was led by the construction/design team of Perkins + Will, a firm specializing in the design of laboratories and offices for the life science and tech sectors, along with Nova Partners, DPR Construction, Rutherford + Chekene and Interface Engineering.
The Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases and its global drug discovery teams are focused on drugging “undruggable” targets in collaboration with the Novartis-Berkeley Center for Proteomics and Chemistry Technologies.
Gritstone Oncology Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing the next generation of cancer immunotherapies to fight multiple cancer types.