NJ Campus Lands Major Life Science Project

Lincoln Equities Group has sold a 42-acre portion of its campus in Hopewell, N.J., to BeiGene, a multinational life sciences company. BeiGene said in a statement on Tuesday that its plans call for as much as 400,000 square feet of commercial-stage biologic pharmaceutical manufacturing, clinical R&D and office space.

Construction is on track to start in 2022 and is expected to be complete in late 2023 or 2024. The sale price was not disclosed, but BeiGene said that it plans to invest several hundred million dollars in the project.

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Lincoln Equities was represented by Daniel Loughlin, vice chairman in JLL’s New Jersey office markets group, and Robert Klausner, partner & co-chair of the real estate practice at the Fox Rothschild law firm.

BeiGene’s planned campus at Lincoln Equities’ Princeton West Innovation Campus in Hopewell, N.J. Rendering courtesy of BeiGene

The announcement marks a milestone for Princeton West Innovation Campus, the 433-acre former campus of Bristol Myers Squibb. Lincoln Equities and H.I.G. acquired the property in June 2020. The site comprises 1.2 million square feet in nine main buildings, as well as an additional 1 million square feet of potential development.

Current amenities include a 28,000-square-foot child development center, an 8,000-square-foot fitness facility and a 9,000-square-foot mansion, the campus’ original building, which now provides conference space.

When complete, BeiGene’s development will join the firm’s campuses in Cambridge, Mass.; Ridgefield, N.J.; Fulton, Md.; San Mateo, Calif.; and Emeryville, Calif. Founded in China 11 years ago, the company specializes in developing medications for treating cancer.

Elsewhere at the Princeton West site, PTC Therapeutics operates its 220,000-square-foot Center of Excellence. PTC, which specializes in gene therapy, leased the space from Bristol Myers Squibb in 2019, before the campus’ sale to Lincoln Equities.

At midyear, vacancy in New Jersey’s 20.4 million-square-foot life science market stood at 9.1 percent, according to CBRE.

This month another major Central New Jersey pharmaceutical campus, Novo Nordisk’s North American headquarters in Plainsboro, received a $211 million refinancing. Cushman & Wakefield helped structure the note on behalf of the property’s owner, Hana Financial Group of South Korea.