Longfellow Real Estate Partners plans to increase the size of a life science campus development in Emeryville after acquiring a vacant research building there for $36 million.
The approximately 63,000-square-foot property at 6601-6603 Shellmound Street is next door to a building about twice its size, the site of which Boston-based Longfellow leases. The company plans to convert both structures to lab use to create an almost 200,000-square-foot Class A life science campus, Managing Director Nick Frasco said in a Jan. 10 news release. The San Francisco Business Times reported details of the sale earlier.
The acquisition underlines Longfellow’s “commitment to the Emeryville market, where we see strong demand and growth potential for the biotech sector,” Frasco said in the release by JLL, which represented the seller of the Shellmound building, Griffin Capital, in an off-market deal. In Emeryville and Berkeley, life science vacancies effectively hit zero in both markets in the third quarter of last year, according to data from CBRE, a commercial real estate firm.
The company expects to deliver the building’s first suite — which it’s converting to lab use without a tenant lined up — in the second half of this year, the release said.
Longfellow signed a 34-year ground lease with a purchase option for the building adjacent to the Shellmound Street one last spring, the Business Times said at the time. The developer previously planned to demolish the vacant, 128,000-square-foot building and build a 750,000-square-foot project with 144 homes, labs, and offices in its place, but it withdrew that proposal last October to meet life science tenant demand quicker, the Business Times reported.
[San Francisco Business Times] — Matthew Niksa