![Demand and construction in life science real estate has reached record heights, led by Boston (right) and San Francisco. (iStock)](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ft-Boston-pace-surging-life-sciences-market-250x179.jpg)
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Here come the robots: life sciences firm nearly doubles LIC footprint
Lab robot builder added over 46K sf to Queens lease
![Robot arms and 45-18 Court Square (Newmark, iStock)](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/NY-Here-come-the-robots-LIfe-sciences-firm-nearly-doubles-LIC-footprint-MAIN.jpg)
Long Island City’s up-and-coming life sciences sector has notched an expanded lease for a growing tenant.
Opentrons, a firm that builds lab robots for biologists, nearly doubled its office space at 45-18 Court Square to just shy of 94,000 square feet, the Commercial Observer reported.
The expansion comes less than a year after Opentrons first set up shop in the LIC building known as Innolabs. The company moved to the facility from Dumbo, Brooklyn last September, signing on to a near 48,000-square-foot space at $85 per square foot.
Opentrons’ initial lease encompassed the building’s second floor. The new terms add 46,179 square feet to that footprint, allowing the robot-maker to take over the building’s entire third floor.
A spokesperson for the building declined to disclose the lease’s asking rent or length to the Observer.
The recent signing is the latest boost to Long Island City’s standing as a life sciences hub.
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![Demand and construction in life science real estate has reached record heights, led by Boston (right) and San Francisco. (iStock)](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ft-Boston-pace-surging-life-sciences-market-250x179.jpg)
![](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ft_NY_43-10-LIC-250x179.jpg)
In December, Longfellow Real Estate Partners dropped $95 million, or $475 per square foot, on a majority stake in 43-10 23rd Street, a 200,000-square-foot property the developer plans to transform into a life sciences facility.
CBRE’s life science practice leader John Isaacs told the New York Business Journal last month the Queens neighborhood has emerged as a hotbed for new tenancies. He called the area a “relief valve” with clusters of the sector’s players taking more affordable spaces than the inventory Manhattan has to offer.
[CO] — Suzannah Cavanaugh