Wareham paid about $10 million for the property and isconstructing the facility at a cost of approximately $400 per sf.Wareham principal Chris Barlow tells GlobeSt.com that the reasonfor the $100-million development risk is simple.

"We have about 1.2 million sf of life science space in the BayArea and we have zero vacancy," he says. "The last two or threeyears, we have been able to accommodate growth by existing clientsand service new ones. Now, without the new building, the problem wewould have faced next was not being able to meet the next bigrequirement."

Wareham's existing clients include government agencies, such asthe state department of Justice and Substance Control and thefederal Environmental Protection Agency, and multinationals such asNovartis and Bayer. "This is a relationship business and you reallyneed to have space on hand in order to let existing tenants growand respond quickly to new ones," Barlow says.