Throughout its history, the San Francisco Bay Area has been instrumental in paving the way for life science and bio-innovation to thrive. Over the past two decades, the region has cemented itself as the second largest life science hub in term of lab space and where biotech companies have continued their record pace of employment, vaulting the Bay Area to the largest employment cluster with nearly 160,000 people working in these sectors.
As conversations around the future of the region’s office market remain in flux, the Bay Area’s life science industry continues to be consistently supported by world-class companies and renowned institutions throughout the region such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and more. These institutional factors that are located right in the Bay Area’s backyard have maintained a consistent need for state-of-the-art lab space, resulting in continued development and construction of key projects.
Longfellow Real Estate Partners, the largest privately held investor and developer of life science buildings, has helped support the rapid growth of Bay Area’s diverse life science ecosystem. Over the past several years, Longfellow’s existing Bay Area portfolio has created over 2 million square feet of lab and office space with over 3 million square feet in the development pipeline, helping meet the need in key submarkets such as San Francisco, Redwood City, Emeryville, Palo Alto, and more.
One notable project is Avia Labs at Millbrae Station, which celebrated its groundbreaking in March of this year. Located in the emerging submarket of Millbrae, the new 315,000 square-foot Class A lab project represents one of the first all-electric life science campuses in California. With LEED Gold and Fitwel Certifications, the ground-up design emphasizes energy efficiency, quality of life, and a transit-oriented destination which is centrally located within the San Francisco Peninsula – just steps away from the Millbrae Transit Center where Caltrain and BART converge as well as San Francisco International Airport.
As with other Longfellow developments, close collaboration with local government and key stakeholders was vital in the success of the Avia Labs project.
“The City of Millbrae is excited to work with Longfellow Real Estate Partners to break ground on this historic location of Avia Labs at Millbrae Station. It has been a pleasure to work with the Longfellow team over the past few years to bring this project to life, which will change the trajectory and cityscape of Millbrae for the better,” said Millbrae City Manager Tom Williams. “Our entire City is looking forward to this partnership and the success of a development like Avia Labs will bring to Millbrae, its citizens, and our entire community. We look forward to the ribbon cutting ceremony when the campus is complete.”
While ground-up developments create a purpose-built, flexible environment for the life science industry, high quality conversion projects such as those at Icona Labs represent an extremely important method for bringing online the space the Bay Area market needs that can often result in a faster overall timeline.
One key project is that of Icona: Labs at Mission Bay – the 750,000 square foot, Class A life science and technology complex formerly known as The Exchange. The LEED Platinum and WELL Core & Shell Gold certified property is leasing over 390,000 square feet of state-of-the-art lab capable space where Longfellow is in the process of building out turnkey labs to accommodate the full spectrum of life science partners.
Icona Lab’s positioning in one of the most active and robust life science submarkets in San Francisco lends itself to support over 50 biotechnology companies that are within walking distance of the campus, including one of Icona’s anchor tenants, VIR Biotechnology, which signed the property’s first direct long-term lease agreement in early 2022 for over 130,000 square feet.
One example of these successful Bay Area conversion projects is that of Palo Alto Labs that houses life science and biotech partners such as Delfi Diagnostics, Rarebase, GatorBio, and others just minutes away from the campus of Stanford University.
“Gator Bio is a proud partner of Longfellow Real Estate Partners – we are fortunate to be based in the heart of Silicon Valley on their Palo Alto Labs campus. Gator Bio is a Silicon Valley biotech company with a mission to help accelerate biotherapeutics discovery through cutting-edge bioanalytical tools,” said Gator Bio’s People Operations Manager, Katherine Ton-Tho. “As our team has grown, our need for space for product development has also grown; Longfellow was the perfect partnership as they welcomed our R&D, manufacturing, and administrative teams on campus to support our development in a seamless transition.”
Staying consistent with Longfellow’s international portfolio, developments such as Avia Labs and Icona Labs will combine research and lab spaces with extensive amenities provided by Elevate™, Longfellow’s proprietary tenant experience platform that is thoughtfully and uniquely curated for tenants needs. Key amenities at Icona Labs feature the acclaimed Ballast Point brewpub, rooftop garden, modernized gym, and more while Avia Labs is set to feature a fitness center, training rooms, a terrace overlooking the city, and a publicly accessible café to welcome members of the Millbrae community.
Investing and developing in the communities where our partners live, work, and play is at the heart of Longfellow’s long-term investments throughout Bay Area’s life science ecosystem. As the demand for thoughtful, sustainable space grows within the local life science industry, the Longfellow team will continue to meet that demand, providing the flexibility and framework for some of the world’s most powerful innovations that advance the human condition.
~ Longfellow Real Estate Partners is the largest privately held investor and developer of life science buildings in the world. With approximately 200 employees and a portfolio that spans over 16.5 million square feet across offices and projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston-Cambridge, Maryland-Washington D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, Research Triangle of North Carolina and the United Kingdom, Longfellow partners with renowned universities and pioneering life sciences and technology companies to help bring visionary ideas to life. Driven by a passion to support those working to advance the human condition, Longfellow continues to grow and expand in the name of scientific progress. For more information, visit: https://lfrep.com”
