Houston’s Largest Life Sciences Sale Caps off 2020

THE WOODLANDS, TX—Demand for life sciences is ratcheting up in Houston. The sale of five buildings totaling 260,950 square feet at 8800 Technology Forest Dr. is proof positive of that statement.

In fact, this is the single-largest commercial real estate sales transaction in the life sciences sector in the Greater Houston area in 2020, according to NAI Partners. The buyer and purchase price were undisclosed.

The main building on the former Lexicon Pharmaceuticals campus is a 128,400-square-foot class-A office property with laboratory space. Additional properties on the site include a one-story flex property with lab and office space, as well as two special-use facilities.

NAI Partners’ Dan Boyles and Jon Silberman represented the seller, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. Lexicon will be relocating its corporate headquarters to a new location in The Woodlands.

“We’ve been seeing life sciences real estate activity ramping up in and around the Greater Houston area in a big way,” said Boyles. “When we initially listed the property, we thought it might have more broad appeal as a redevelopment opportunity, but there was plenty of interest from potential laboratory, office and biological manufacturing users, further underscoring Houston’s growing appeal as a life sciences hub.”

Further accentuating that draw is the fact that multiple major life sciences and innovation developments are in the works throughout Houston including TMC3 owned by the Texas Medical Center, Rice University’s The Ion project, Hines and 2ML Real Estate Interests’ Levit Green, and Medistar Corp.’s Innovation Tower as well as the forthcoming Texas A&M Innovation Plaza development which will include medical office and lab space within its Horizon Tower. And still other projects include Valley Ranch Medical District.

“Valley Ranch Medical District, a new 180-acre medical mixed-use district in northeast Houston, broke ground at the end of the third quarter within the 1,400-acre master-planned community of Valley Ranch, 29 miles northeast of downtown Houston in Montgomery County, further underscoring Houston’s increasing attractiveness as a life sciences destination,” Zach Leger, an NAI Partners broker specializing in the life sciences sector, tells GlobeSt.com. “In fact, Houston recently ranked number two nationally by a global real estate services company for being an emerging life sciences cluster, ranking high for its advanced biotech research and development sector.”

As of last month, developments under construction stand at 1.3 million square feet and deliveries are at 321,000 square feet, according to NAI Partners.

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company that uses gene science based on Nobel Prize-winning technology to discover and develop medicines for people with serious chronic conditions.