Gilead Sciences aims to add 250K sf of labs in Foster City

Plans call for conversion of 45K sf office building on corporate campus

Gilead Sciences' Dan O'Day (Steve Proehl/Getty, Gilead Sciences)
Gilead Sciences' Dan O'Day (Steve Proehl/Getty, Gilead Sciences)

Gilead Sciences wants to ramp up drug research in Foster City by converting a combined 250,000 square feet of offices and planned offices into research laboratories.

The biopharmaceutical firm has filed plans to convert a 45,500-square-foot office building into labs while changing plans for 205,000 square feet of new offices into R&D at 333 Lakeside Drive, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The new labs would be located on the south side of the headquarters campus, where Gilead has consolidated its research. The proposal would not change the footprint of its master plan.

“We’re always evaluating our master plan as business develops,” Cathy Cantone, spokeswoman for the company, told the Business Times.

The change is part of a 15-year remake of the 72-acre campus, moving from 600,000 square feet of low-slung buildings to 2.5 million square feet of offices, labs, cafeterias, manufacturing, storage, meeting rooms and a gym.

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Plans also call for turning a temporary park on the site of a former parking garage into a 5-acre Gilead Park with an amphitheater and gardens in the heart of its north campus, scrapping plans for two office buildings.

The drugmaker has 14,000 employees, of whom 8,500 people work in Foster City.

Gilead Sciences, a biotech firm founded in 1987 in Foster City’s Vintage Park, is best known for its HIV and hepatitis C drugs as well as cancer cell therapy.

— Dana Bartholomew

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