Anthro Energy to Move Headquarters From San Jose to Alameda

Anthro Energy will pack up its gear for making lithium batteries and move it across the bay to a new headquarters in Alameda.

The San Jose-based battery maker has leased a 31,700-square-foot hub at 2095 North Loop Road, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The two-story industrial property is part of the Loop, a six-building, 332,000-square-foot biomanufacturing park owned by Atlanta-based Invesco Real Estate. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Anthro Energy will use the building as a new headquarters, research and development center and small-scale manufacturing demonstration site, according to the Business Journal, citing city records.

The firm hired Oakland-based Creek Development to make tenant improvements at its new headquarters.

Anthro will add a new laboratory, R&D facilities, shipping and storage and an exterior storefront. The firm also wants to revamp the second floor offices by creating new conference rooms, private offices, “huddle rooms” and storage.

Its current headquarters is at 2365 Bering Drive in San Jose. It’s not clear when the company will make the move.

Invesco bought the industrial portfolio at 2115, 2095, 2065 and 1955 North Loop Road, as well as 1410 and 1430 Harbor Bay Parkway, in 2021 for $100 million, or $301 per square foot.

The investor then marketed the properties as ideal for biomanufacturing and STEM startups shifting from the lab into pilot manufacturing and commercialization.

Two years ago, Azzur Group, a national consultant for the life sciences, biotech and medical device industries, signed a two-building lease for 76,000 square feet, according to the Business Times.

In 2021, Senti Biosciences, a South San Francisco-based gene therapeutics company, signed a lease for 92,000 square feet. Other move-ins include medical device company Penumbra and Exelixis.

More than 100,000 square feet of space at 1410 Harbor Bay Parkway went up for sublease last quarter, however.

The number of empty R&D buildings in the region is growing during a widespread life science market slump.

Vacancy in Alameda’s 1.6 million-square-foot research and development market hit 14 percent in the third quarter ending in September, up from 8.5 percent in the second quarter, according to CBRE.

From now through December, more space is expected to hit the market, with even more doors expected to open next year.

Some 500,000 square feet of space at Berkeley Commons is set to open next quarter, and phase two of the Speedway at Bayfair, a 260,000-square-foot retail-to-R&D conversion of a Macy’s department store in San Leandro, is slated to open by the third quarter.

— Dana Bartholomew