SF developers blueprint $1B biotech campus

South San Francisco may be suffering from high commercial vacancy rates, but Shorenstein Properties and SKS Investments have reached a deal with the city to begin building a billion dollars worth of new biotech lab and office space. The developers are blueprinting 2.3 million square feet of new R&D space on the waterfront at Oyster Point.

"It's a $1 billion project," Marty Van Duyn, the city's director of economic development, tells the San Francisco Business Times. "It's a lot of good R&D and office, and they are helping us out quite a bit in realizing our long-term goals for the harbor in terms of recreation and retail and open space. It presents a unique opportunity to marry some of the city's goals with a major development. This area has languished for a long period of time. It has not been as popular as it should be."

When it's done, the new biotech campus is expected to become a new workplace for 8,000 people. And the developers plan to begin construction at a time that the office vacancy rate is close to 20 percent, with about 800,000 square feet available.

- read the story from the San Francisco Business Times

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