BioMed Welcomes Biotech Powerhouse at Bay Area Campus

Gateway of Pacific Phase 2. Image courtesy of BioMed Realty

BioMed Realty has signed leading biotech company Amgen to a long-term lease for 240,000 square feet at BioMed’s Gateway of Pacific campus in South San Francisco.

The lease is for the entire north tower in the development’s second phase, which will house Amgen’s Bay Area scientists and employees focused on cardiometabolic, inflammation and oncology research.

The 22.6-acre campus is just off Highway 101 and barely north of San Francisco International Airport and only half a mile from Caltrain’s South San Francisco station.

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Gateway of Pacific includes 1.3 million square feet currently under construction in three phases:

• The 509,000-square-foot Phase I, which has been 94 percent leased by pharma giant AbbVie. BioMed has substantially completed the building’s shell and core;
• Phase II comprises 440,000 square feet of Class A lab and office space in two interconnected towers. The north tower represents 55 percent of Phase II and is scheduled for occupancy by Amgen in early 2022;
• Phase III recently began construction and will deliver a further 350,000 square feet of Class A lab and office space to the campus.

Gateway of Pacific also includes Traverse, a 50,000-square-foot amenity center with a food hall and sports bar, health club and spa, meeting and event spaces, and a variety of outdoor recreational areas.

Biotech Hubs

BioMed has been on a leasing tear in the fourth quarter. In October, it announced that molecular manufacturing technology company Zymergen had taken the entire 300,000-square-foot life sciences building at Emeryville Center for Innovation in the East Bay region.

Also that month, an unidentified Fortune 50 company—since revealed to be Apple—agreed to be the sole tenant of APEX, a four-story, 204,000-square-foot building that BioMed will develop in San Diego’s University Towne Centre submarket.

The demand for life science space in the Bay Area market continues to outpace supply, according to a third-quarter report from Kidder Mathews, which is tracking more than 3.9 million square feet of tenant requirements.

The third quarter saw about 650,000 square feet of net absorption, with nearly three-fourths of it in San Mateo County and most of that in South San Francisco. The average vacancy rate bumped up slightly, but only to 3.58 percent.