Breakthrough Properties Buys Life Science Campus for $159M
The property is situated in a top San Diego submarket.
Breakthrough Properties, a joint venture of Tishman Speyer and biotech investment firm Bellco Capital, has acquired MUSE, a three-building trophy life science campus in the Torrey Pines submarket of San Diego, for $159 million.
The seller was Diversified Healthcare Trust, which reported that at the time of sale, the property was 49 percent leased, with a weighted average lease term of more than eight years. The seller stated that it plans to use the transaction proceeds to pay down its senior secured notes due in January 2026.
DHC is managed by leading U.S. alternative asset management company The RMR Group.
MUSE consists of three buildings totaling 186,000 square feet in the heart of Torrey Pines. The campus was recently repositioned with a new exterior glass façade and enhanced amenities, including a new fitness center, indoor/outdoor conference center, landscaping with outdoor seating and games, as well as a full-service café.
Two of the buildings were recently upgraded to modern labs and are fully leased on a long-term basis, Breakthrough stated. One vacant building will be repositioned to provide flexible wet lab space to accommodate a variety of life science research.
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As of press time, a Breakthrough Properties spokesperson had not replied to Commercial Property Executive’s request for additional information.
The Class A buildings are at 3030, 3040 and 3050 Science Park Road and are, respectively, three stories, 94,456 square feet, occupied by Surgalign; two stories, 36,418 square feet; and two stories, 55,102 square feet, tenanted by Prometheus Biosciences, according to information provided by CommercialEdge. All three were completed in 1985 and 1986 and completely redeveloped in 2021.
San Diego’s life science market performance
The San Diego life science market has seen direct vacancy rise steadily from a low of about 6 percent in mid-2022 to nearly 18 percent currently, according to a January report from Savills USA. Meanwhile, the construction pipeline has fallen to 4.5 million square feet, Savills reported, “as developers hold off on new projects amid limited preleasing and ongoing tepid demand.”
Torrey Pines and Sorrento Mesa have been the two most active submarkets for leasing activity recently.
In October, Breakthrough Properties opened Torrey View, a 520,000-square-foot life science campus in San Diego’s Del Mar Heights submarket. The 10-acre, three-building property is fully preleased, largely to Pfizer’s oncology division and Becton, Dickinson and Co.
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