Blackstone affiliate BioMed Realty is partnering with the University of California San Diego to develop a state-of-the-art research facility focused on finding treatments and potential cures for cancer and other chronic diseases in La Jolla, Calif. The 110,000-square-foot Center for Novel Therapeutics will be located within the university’s Science Research Park near Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, with construction expected to commence in the second quarter of this year. Upon completion of the project, scheduled for early 2019, the university will become the facility’s anchor tenant.
Pradeep Khosla, UC San Diego Chancellor, said that the project is “an exciting new addition to the University’s Science Research Park – where a diverse array of researchers from every sector can advance technology and medical science to benefit patients.”
“By partnering with UC San Diego on the first university-linked accelerator, this project will give researchers and entrepreneurs unique access to academic and institutional resources at the University and Moores Cancer Center and the ability to be part of one of the nation’s most vibrant life science communities,” added BioMed Realty President & CEO Tim Schoen.
The new Center for Novel Therapeutics will pursue LEED Gold certification, incorporating a high-efficiency cooling and heating plant, LED light fixtures, as well as renewable energy from photovoltaic panels. Perkins + Will has been tapped as architect of record for the project, which will feature an enclosed atrium at the heart of the three-story building, 366 surface and below-grade parking spaces, wet and dry laboratories, bioengineering core facilities, clinical trials space and research support spaces.
BioMed Realty Trust was acquired by affiliates of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII in early 2016, in a transaction valued at roughly $8 billion, including debt. In the fall of 2015, when the deal was first announced, Nadeem Meghji, co-head of U.S. real estate acquisitions for Blackstone, stated that “BioMed owns an exceptional collection of office buildings catering to life-science tenants in gateway markets including Boston-Cambridge, San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle.” Meghji added that Blackstone believed in the long-term fundamentals of the healthcare research sector, especially in markets with “top-tier educational and research institutions.”
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