Alexandria Leases 100 KSF at Bay Area Life Science Campus

835 Industrial Road, also known as Building 2 of the Alexandria Center for Life Science – San Carlos mega-campus. Image courtesy of Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities has inked a long-term lease with CARGO Therapeutics for 99,557 square feet of space at Building 2 of The Alexandria Center for Life Science – San Carlos campus, a 276,945-square-foot Class A laboratory and office facility in San Carlos, Calif.

CARGO, a clinical-stage biotech company that focuses on developing next-generation cell therapies for cancer patients, is moving into its new labs in early 2024. The company’s headquarters lies in nearby San Mateo, roughly 5 miles northwest along California State Route 82.

A mega-campus within a master plan

Building 2 of the campus is located at 835 Industrial Road. The facility was built in 2021, as a portion of the first phase of a planned 1.4 million-square-foot, seven-building campus taking shape adjacent to Highway 101. Building 1, its neighbor located at 825 Industrial Road, spans 280,000 square feet over six stories, according to CommercialEdge information. The same source shows that JLL and Newmark head up leasing within the building.

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Overall, the site has 737,000 square feet of rentable space. Labs around the campus feature private conference rooms, with amenities including a central courtyard, dining space, coffee bar, fitness center and covered parking. Located at the 20-mile midpoint between San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., the facilities have access to much of the biotechnology talent around Silicon Valley, with Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley sitting within 8 and 25 miles away, respectively.

According to the San Francisco Business Times, plans for the development go back to 2019, when Alexandria first submitted the project to the City Council.

Laboratory space inside 835 Industrial Road. Image courtesy of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.

The larger campus is a component of San Carlos’ East Side Innovation District, a master-planned mixed-use neighborhood envisioned by the San Carlos City Council that calls for the transformation of the area’s industrial buildings into life science, residential and hospitality space, as well as for a rearrangement of the area’s urban planning to support quicker and more efficient transportation. According to CommercialEdge information, Alexandria currently owns two parcels in the area, which contain 12 buildings totaling more than 2.5 million square feet of space. Around the Bay Area’s life science clusters, Alexandria holds 8.8 million square feet of rentable space.

Alexandria’s other endeavors

Outside of the birthplace of biotech, the nation’s largest life science developer continues to scale in both longstanding and emerging life science hubs. In Boston, the firm is developing the Alexandria Center for Life Science – Fenway, a four-building campus that will total 2 million square feet. In October, the REIT announced the development of a $201.5 million, 325,000-square-foot campus in Houston.