Trammell Crow, Beacon Capital Open Chicago’s Hyde Park Labs

Chicago took another step toward cementing itself as an advanced research and development hub with the opening this week of Hyde Park Labs, a 13-story commercial lab and office building at 5207 South Harper Avenue.

The building — the first advanced R&D facility on the South Side — combines labs, offices, retail and a community STEM learning center. The University of Chicago leased more than 150,000 square feet, including space for the new UChicago Science Incubator. The lease is half the building and almost triple the amount of space it previously planned, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The incubator is a partnership between the university’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and life sciences venture capital firm Portal Innovations.

Developers Beacon Capital Partners and Trammell Crow Company launched the $225 million, 302,000-square-foot project two years ago. The property will have nine floors of labs, a roof terrace and 40,000 square feet of amenities.

Trammell Crow has built two labs in Fulton Market in recent years and another in Evanston.

The incubator is already home to more than a dozen startups spanning life sciences, deep tech and quantum computing. They include memQ, spun out of UChicago and Argonne National Lab to develop quantum networking technology, and HaloGen, an MIT spinoff building batteries for medical devices.

By colocating startups with university researchers from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Biological Sciences Division, UChicago aims to spark collaborations and accelerate commercialization.

Hyde Park Labs will also temporarily host IBM’s next-generation quantum computer before it moves to the planned Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park on the former South Works steel site. Portal Innovations CEO John Flavin called the project a milestone for bridging academia and industry.

Beyond the lab space, Hyde Park Labs is designed as a neighborhood anchor. It marks the second phase of Harper Court, the Trammell Crow and Beacon Capital–led mixed-use development that debuted in 2013 with retail, offices and a Hyatt hotel. The building also houses the Southside STEM Station, which offers free science and tech programs for local educators, families and students.

The project adds value to the 53rd Street commercial corridor, where the Obama Foundation set up shop in 2016, and momentum to Hyde Park’s broader shift from university enclave to mixed-use innovation district. UChicago President Paul Alivisatos said the building will “help energize the local economy,” while Nadya Mason, dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, touted its role in bringing “an influx of people and activity” to the South Side.

— Eric Weilbacher