BioMed Realty Closes $600M-Plus Acquisition
Flatiron Park is the largest life science and office campus in this Colorado city.
Rendering of 5505 Central Ave. at Flatiron Park. Image courtesy of BioMed Realty
BioMed Realty has acquired Flatiron Park, a 1 million-square-foot, 22-building life science and office campus in Boulder, Colo. A BioMed spokesperson told Commercial Property Executive that the purchase price was “a little more than $600 million.”
The seller was a joint venture of Crescent Real Estate, Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s Real Estate Business and Lionstone Investments. JLL Capital Markets represented the seller.
The campus is currently 90 percent leased to a mix of technology and life science firms, reportedly including Apple, although the spokesperson was unable to comment on this.
Flatiron Park helps BioMed expand its portfolio beyond its existing core markets. The company previously owned assets in Boulder that were part of a portfolio disposition strategy in 2016, closely following BioMed’s acquisition by Blackstone, but this is the first time that BioMed has had any scale in Boulder.
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5541 Central Ave. at Flatiron Park. Image courtesy of Scott J. Latimer of Dean Callan & Co. Inc.
In a prepared statement, Jon Bergschneider, president of West Coast markets at BioMed Realty, said the company “anticipates investing an additional $200 million in redevelopment costs over time” at Flatiron Park.
Mike Ruhl, BioMed’s vice president of leasing, added, “Boulder has always been a market to watch, driven by highly educated talent, robust capital flow, an existing base of life science and tech pioneers, and great quality of life.”
As part of its efforts to engage with the Boulder community, BioMed has made a monetary donation to the Director’s Discretionary Fund at University of Colorado Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute, to support researchers from the life sciences, physical sciences, computer science and engineering fields who are working together to discover innovative solutions that improve human health.
Workers and spaces
Metro Denver’s life science market attracted about $700 million in venture capital investment in 2021, according to a first-quarter update from Cushman & Wakefield.
The report noted a broad correlation in major life science markets between the depth of the talent pool and the life science space inventory. Across 12 markets nationwide, the average inventory-to-talent ratio is 462 square foot per person. Metro Denver, along with the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego and North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham area, has a somewhat higher ratio, above 600 square feet.
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