Parcel on Alameda waterfront now billed as life sciences site

A chunk of waterfront property in Alameda entitled for a 172-room Marriott inn is now being billed as a site for a life sciences development.

WS Management, based in Sacramento, has listed the southwest-facing waterfront lot at 2900 Harbor Bay Parkway, inside Harbor Bay Business Park, San Francisco Business Times reported.

Real estate services firm JLL is marketing the property as a “rare opportunity” to develop a life sciences facility in “one of the strongest markets in the world.” It says in a brochure that the site could be developed into a 120,000-square-foot facility. An asking price was not disclosed.

The property is next to the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal, with a 20-minute ferry ride to San Francisco.

Alameda Planning Director Andrew Thomas said current zoning would allow for a life sciences developer.

“Life sciences is just booming right now,” he told the newspaper,” and it’s in the business park, so it is permitted on that site from a zoning perspective.”
Harbor Bay Business Park is home to a number of life sciences companies, including Abbott, Exelixis, Senti Bio and Penumbra.

JLL reports a 2.3 percent vacancy rate within its 1.7 million square feet of space for life sciences. Alameda overall has a 2.6 million-square-foot life sciences inventory, with a 4.9 percent vacancy rate, the firm reports.

The nearly six-acre property had once been targeted for a Marriott Residence Inn. Its developer, West River, entitled the project in late 2018, but was delayed by appeals by a local homeowner’s association and a labor union. The Alameda City Council rejected the appeals, but West River never broke ground on the inn.

WS Management and West River didn’t respond to requests for comment by the business journal.

The Bay Area’s life science real estate sector has hit a fever pitch – with the market increasingly embracing life sciences development as the pandemic accelerates industry growth. The region has the second-largest life science cluster in the U.S. after Boston, with demand for space increasing nearly 20 percent in six months.

[San Francisco Business Times] – Dana Bartholomew

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