Real estate activity in San Diego’s fast-growing life science cluster continued to bustle during 2022 with multiple leasings, redevelopments and new projects geared to escalating demand in the nation’s third-largest hub for biotech research and development.
As one of the larger, newly completed projects, Alexandria Real Estate Equities expansion at its Alexandria Tech Center campus in Sorrento Mesa was chosen for a 2023 CoStar Impact Award, as judged by a panel of local real estate professionals.
The five-story building at 10555 Barnes Canyon Road was fully preleased by San Diego-based Element Biosciences more than a year before construction was completed in mid-2022. Element Biosciences, focused on developing genetic analytics tools geared to medical diagnoses, was started in 2017 and is now headquartered in the new building, which spans nearly 177,000 square feet on about three acres.
The quick preleasing well before construction was finished typifies a current trend enjoyed by Alexandria and other developers catering to biotech firms looking to expand into spaces that have become increasingly hard to find over the past decade. Sorrento Mesa in north-central San Diego is among neighborhoods now capitalizing on spillover effects after space ran out in the region’s original biotech hub of Torrey Pines in the coastal village of La Jolla.
San Diego ranks behind only Boston and San Francisco for its concentration of biotech real estate, and life science supports more than 175,000 local jobs, according to trade group Biocom California. Several projects are now underway across the San Diego region to meet demand that remains historically high among established small and large companies, even as venture funding available to startup firms has slowed so far in 2023.
The Barnes Canyon Road building was the fifth new structure to be completed at an established office campus owned by Pasadena, California-based Alexandria, which is among the nation’s largest owners of biotech labs and offices.
About the project: Alexandria Real Estate Equities developed a new five-story building at its Alexandria Tech Center campus that now houses the headquarters of Element Biosciences, which preleased the property for its lab and office operations.
What the judges said: “The addition of space in this highly sought-after area of San Diego is a welcomed addition to a very tight life sciences arena,” said judge Amy McNamara, principal in brokerage firm Urban Property Group. “This project allows new startups as well as expanding life science companies the ability to remain in San Diego.”
They made it happen: The development was overseen by Bret Gossett, senior vice president of leasing and asset services at Alexandria Real Estate Equities.