Oxford Properties Group has acquired four life sciences assets and developable land in the San Francisco Bay for $276 million with a plan to spend another $500 million creating a next generation life science hub.
The deal is part of Oxford’s wider push into the North American life science sector that will initially focus on San Francisco as well as Boston, San Diego, and other emerging locations that it has early excitement over.
Beyond North America, Oxford is also reviewing opportunities across Europe as it looks for global exposure to the asset class where its interest to date has been limited to equity and credit investments.
“Growth in this asset class is being driven by a number of tailwinds,” said Chad Remis, Executive Vice President, North America at Oxford Properties. “Growing a meaningfully sized life sciences business represents one of our highest conviction investment strategies and top priorities across our business,”
Today (Monday) Oxford announced it has acquired Emeryville Public Market (pictured top) in a partnership with City Center Realty Partners (CCRP), a San Francisco-based real estate developer and investor. The 148,000 s/f mixed-use project comprises lab space, retail, food and office and is located within the established life sciences cluster of Emeryville in the San Francisco Bay Area. The investment includes 36,000 s/f of ground floor first generation lab space, a popular food hall, and 60,000 s/f of current office and retail space identified for conversion to lab space.
The deal also features land parcels that have the potential be developed to add new purpose-built lab product in a market that currently features almost zero availability for lab space.
The seller was a joint venture between Angelo Gordon and CCRP, represented by Newmark’s Steven Golubchik and Nicholas Bicardo.
“These transactions grow our presence in two key global life sciences markets and complement our existing portfolio of assets and significant development pipeline in the sector,” said Remis. “It gives us a solid foundation to continue to grow from as we seek to scale this part of Oxford’s business in 2021.”
The acquisition follows Oxford December 2020 purchase of three assets in the Greater Boston area. 33 New York Avenue is a new 114,000 s/f biomanufacturing facility fully leased to Replimune Group Inc and CRISPR Therapeutics.
It also purchased 1 & 5 Mountain Road, two adjacent buildings that comprise 153,000 s/f and are currently leased in their entirety to Sanofi.
