Long Market Property Partners has acquired a 22,043-square-foot research and development property at 1440 4th St. in Berkeley, California, with plans to convert the property into a life science use. The investor secured $9.75 million in financing to purchase and reposition the asset.
The property was built in 1948 as a warehouse facility, but it is currently an obsolete single-story property with 18-foot clear heights. It also has unique architectural features like polished concrete floors and high wood barrel truss ceilings as well as 32 parking spaces. Long Market will make improvements to the property to make it more appealing to life science users, which are hungry for supply in the Bay Area.
There is tremendous demand in the Berkeley Area for life science product. The San Francisco area continues to be a top market for life sciences. It is one of the three legacy markets, along with Boston and San Diego, where industry clusters are most long standing, and where a vast inventory of lab properties already exist. Those three markets continuing to rank as the top life science hubs nationally, according to research from JLL.
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The market activity is so strong that it has spilled into surrounding submarkets. Emeryville, for example, is becoming an emerging life science hub. With proximity to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, which have a low vacancy rate of 5.7%, Emeryville is attracting biotech and life science companies looking for quality, available space. More than 150 biotech companies are already located in Emeryville, including Novartis, Bayer Healthcare, Amyris and Zymergen.
Long Market's Berkeley property is well located to take advantage of the demand. It is near highly educated labor and UC Berkeley and a pool of life science employers. In addition, the property is near US-80 and rail service at both the North Berkeley BART station and the Berkeley Amtrack Station, as well as retail and entertainment amenities.
Long Market secured a three-year through Ready Capital for the purchase. Jordan Angel, a managing director on JLL's capital markets debt team, led the borrowers representation to secure the funds.
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Kelsi Maree Borland
