London Breed [Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
She highlighted a 5% life sciences vacancy rate in the city in contrast to the 25% office vacancy rate. For context, the vacancy rate for the office market was about 5% before the pandemic.
Breen recently announced a 75,000-square-foot expansion of the Gladstone Institutes’ facility in Mission Bay. The organization is a non-profit biomedical research institution.
She proposed removing code barriers to help developers convert office space into biotech labs, saying that the city wants to make it easier so that it happens more quickly. Breed said that biotech is the future of San Francisco, and the city will work to make it easier to expand and transform other spaces in the city to be used for the same purpose.
Remote working has had a severe impact on San Francisco, ramping up office vacancies to new heights.
San Francisco had been one of the leading tech hubs in the U.S., but the tech industry has embraced the trend of remote work, contributing to the city’s vacancy rates.
Nearly two decades ago, San Francisco established Mission Bay as a biotech district, deliberately designed to avoid restrictive zoning and concerns from nearby residents. The first building in the area was Genentech Hall in 2002. A Gladstone facility followed in December 2004.
Now, Mission Bay is currently the most in-demand market in the city. The neighborhood has about a quarter of all office space available in the city.
Nearby South San Francisco has a long history in the biotech industry. The birthplace of Genentech is now seeing significant pipeline projects take shape. The city continues to be the nexus for the Bay Area’s lab development. Last fall, pharma giant Eli Lilly announced that it planned to lease a considerable amount of space in the city.
Filed Under: Biologics
