BioMed Gives Bristol-Myers Keys to Bay Area Campus

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Woodside Technology Park, Redwood City, Calif.

San Francisco—BioMed Realty‘s relationship with Bristol-Myers Squibb just got stronger at the Woodside Technology Park in Redwood City, Calif., where the global biopharmaceutical company recently expanded its presence by signing a new 62,000-square-foot lease. BioMed now has a full tenant roster at the 256,0000-square-foot, San Francisco Bay Area life sciences campus, and it features just one name: Bristol-Myers.

When BioMed acquired Woodside for $87 million in 2013, Bristol-Myers was already the lead tenant at the 11.5-acre property on Bay Road, occupying a single building in its entirety. Developed in 1999, Woodside consists of three two-story office and laboratory structures, and Bristol-Myers claimed a second in 2014. Now it has taken over the campus completely with its lease of the third building, which will feature cutting-edge accommodations and some of the highest water and energy efficiency standards.

Bristol-Myers’ new commitment will extend through March 2027, as will the company’s leases at the other two Woodside buildings. “The expansion of our facilities in Redwood City is evidence of the value that Bristol-Myers Squibb sees in the Bay Area scientific community and our relationship with BioMed Realty,” Nils Lonberg, head of Oncology Biology Discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb, said in a prepared statement.

The San Francisco Bay Area continues to thrive as one of the top life sciences hubs in the country, according to a report by commercial real estate services firm JLL, ranking third behind Raleigh-Durham and the Greater Boston area, which still holds the #1 spot. BioMed’s Bay Area portfolio spans more than 3 million square feet.

“We continue to see growth and vitality across the Bay Area life science community, as further demonstrated by Bristol-Myers Squibb’s rapid expansion in the Peninsula,” Scott Altick, vice president, Bay Area Leasing with BioMed Realty, told Commercial Property Executive. “Proximity to world-class research institutions and a sustained influx of capital are long-term demand drivers that continue to solidify the Bay Area’s position as a global epicenter of scientific research, development and commercialization.”

The Bristol-Myers lease wasn’t BioMed’s only notable news over the last few months. Earlier in April, the provider of real estate solutions to the life science community signed genomics company Illumina Inc. to a 10-year lease of its 316,000-square-foot i3 campus development in San Diego. And in January, BioMed kicked off 2016 with the completion of its acquisition by affiliates of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII LP, in an approximately $8 billion transaction.