South San Francisco Biotech Campus Sells to Healthpeak

A Denver-based real estate investment trust has completed its purchase of a healthcare campus in South San Francisco.

Healthpeak Properties purchased a 29-acre, 1.4-million-square-foot biotechnology campus on Gateway Boulevard in South San Francisco for $600 million, Bisnow reported. The property spans seven buildings, including a 15,000-square-foot amenity building, and is approximately 60 percent leased. The seller’s identity and the building’s addresses were not disclosed.

The $600 million purchase grows Healthpeak’s footprint in South San Francisco to about 6.5 million square feet across 210 acres. The company, previously known as HCP, kicked off the Bay Area biotech construction boom in 2015 with the first phase of South San Francisco’s 800,000-square-foot Cove at Oyster Point development. Since then, millions of square feet of life sciences and biotech space have been built in the Peninsula city.

As federal funds for life sciences and research have dried up over the past year, firms have shied away from building more office and research space in South San Francisco and beyond. Biotech developer IQHQ is looking to pause development on 857,000 square feet of its Spur project in South San Francisco, and Forge Development is seemingly backing away from its initial proposal for a 900,000-square-foot life sciences campus in Berkeley.

Healthpeak hasn’t been immune to the downturn. In the last quarter of 2025, the company sold approximately $325 million outpatient medical assets totaling about 834,000 square feet. The firm also said it is negotiating sales for additional outpatient medical facilities as well as recapitalizations and loan repayments that could generate an additional $700 million or more in proceeds.

Vacancy in the Northern Peninsula life sciences market, including South San Francisco, was at 39.8 percent at the end of the third quarter of last year, per CBRE’s Q3 report. But this year could bring changes, as active tenant requirements increased 73 percent across the Bay Area compared to the previous quarter and 62 percent year-over-year, according to Bisnow.

SteelWave is among those betting on a comeback, as the firm is moving forward with its plan to turn the Golden Gate Produce Terminal in South San Francisco into a 2.5-million-square-foot, five-building life sciences campus.

— Chris Malone Méndez