Longfellow Lands $310M for Bay Area Life Science Campus

Avia Labs at Millbrae Station. Rendering courtesy of Longfellow Real Estate Partners

Longfellow Real Estate Partners has broken ground on Avia Labs at Millbrae Station, a Class A, life science campus in Millbrae, Calif. JLL Capital Markets arranged a $310 million construction loan on behalf of the developer, through Otera Capital. The development is set to encompass 315,000 square feet of lab and office space.

Designed to achieve LEED Gold and Fitwel certifications, the all-electric Avia Labs is set to incorporate sustainability and well-being components. The development will comply to ESG standards and meet the requirements of academic research institutions, as well as biotech companies, said Longfellow Managing Director Lauren McDermott in a prepared statement.

READ ALSO: Emerging Trends in Bay Area Life Science Design

A fitness center, conference spaces, bike storage, a terrace and a publicly accessible cafe are among the planned amenities at the property. The upcoming campus will rise at 210 Adrian Road and will be within walking distance of the Millbrae Transit Center and less than 3 miles from San Francisco International Airport.

Earlier this month, Spear Street Capital topped out 300 Kansas, a sustainable research and development manufacturing building in San Francisco. The design of the development features an all-electric, zero-carbon design.

Longfellow Real Estate expands in California

The groundbreaking of the Avia Labs campus is a significant milestone for Longfellow, marking the company’s continued growth in the Bay Area since its debut in 2018. At the end of last year, Longfellow received $202.6 million in construction financing for Bioterra, a 316,000-square-foot life science project in San Diego. The project is slated for completion in the third quarter of 2024.

Longfellow currently has more than 2.5 million square feet of existing space and has plans for an additional 2.5 million square feet of development, with key projects underway in California including some in Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Francisco and Emeryville.

Newmark research indicates that the Bay Area continues to hold its place as the second most significant life science cluster in the U.S., thanks to its abundance of laboratory space exceeding 33 million square feet, strong demand from tenants and robust venture capital networks.

A recent CommercialEdge report reveals that, as of January 2023, the office pipeline in the Bay Area was poised to expand inventory by 2.9 percent, with the addition of 5.8 million square feet of new space.