NYU Langone Medical Center is opening a 50,000-square-foot biotech co-working center at Olmstead Properties’ [TRDataCustom] 180 Varick Street in Hudson Square, a project the city hopes will help the Big Apple compete with biotech hubs like Boston and San Francisco.
NYU is teaming up with national shared lab-space provider BioLabs on the space, dubbed BioLabs@NYULangone, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s LifeSci NYC initiative will contribute $5 million to the center.
“Everybody knows the biggest cost in New York City is real estate,” said James Patchett, chief executive of the city’s Economic Development Corp. The city has the hospitals and research institutions, but “if the cost structure is too high [startups] are forced to go elsewhere.”
NYU Langone invested $10 million over the last several years on upgrades at 180 Varick Street and is pumping in another $5 million. The state’s economic development arm Empire State Development is investing another $2 million.
NYU signed a 15-year lease in the 329,000-square-foot building in 2010. The school found itself in a legal spat with its landlord when Olmstead served NYU with a lease-termination notice in late 2015, but the two sides settled the case quietly last year. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann
(To view more of Olmstead Properties’ office leasing transactions, click here)