Alexandria, Prologis partner on South SF life science project

Developers may soon break ground on a 559,000-square-foot life sciences campus in South San Francisco.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities and Prologis have won unanimous approval from the city’s Planning Commission to build the research campus at 100 East Grand Avenue, the San Francisco Business Times reported. It would replace a 70,000-square-foot warehouse.

Alexandria, a Pasadena-based real estate investment trust, plans to build the research and development campus in collaboration with San Francisco-based Prologis, owner of the 5-acre property.

Plans call for a 10-story, 309,000-square-foot office building, which would include a ground-floor cafe, opposite an eight-story, 250,000-square-foot office building, divided by a public plaza. An eight-story parking garage would serve 782 cars.

The project, designed by Portland-based ZGF, would resemble giant blue-gray cubes cut with descending landscape terraces, just east of Highway 101. About 60 percent of the campus occupancy is expected to be research and development, with the remainder for offices.

The life science complex next to South San Francisco Caltrain Station “would provide a transit-oriented development that will revitalize an underutilized property,” city staff wrote in their recommendation for the project.

South San Francisco, dubbed the “birthplace of biotechnology,” is now home to around 200 biotech companies inhabiting 11.5 million square feet. City officials expect the industry to generate between 50,000 and 90,000 jobs over the next decade.

Alexandria, a giant among life science developers nationwide, has a South San Francisco portfolio of nearly 4 million square feet, according to regulatory filing at the end of last year.

Demand for life sciences space on the Peninsula has remained strong through the pandemic, with a vacancy rate of 3.9 percent at the end of the second quarter, down slightly from the beginning of the year, according to the Business Times.

In April, Dallas-based Trammell Crow bought four properties near the Alexandria/Prologis site with talk about converting a warehouse at 120 East Grand Avenue next door into a life science laboratory.

Also, San Diego-based Phase 3 Real Estate Partners plans to replace a three-story Comfort Inn at 121 East Grand Avenue into a 17-story, 938,000-square-foot office and R&D building.

— Dana Bartholomew

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