Ventas Wraps Up $300M Philly Life Science Project

One uCity Square comprises 400,000 square feet of lab and office space. Image courtesy of Turner Construction Co.

Ventas has officially completed and opened One uCity Square, a 400,000-square-foot Class A lab and office building in Philadelphia. The project team also includes Turner Construction Co. and McKissack & McKissack as general contractors, as well as ZGF Architects.

Ventas, in partnership with Wexford Science + Technology and the University City Science Center, is the developer of uCity Square, a 4 million-square-foot mixed-use project comprising two multifamily buildings with ground-floor retail, five office and lab buildings, a public school and one academic building used by Drexel University.

READ ALSO: Life Science Market to Bounce Back: JLL

One uCity Square is a $300 million project at 225 N. 38th St. that features 32,500-square-foot floorplates, six passenger elevators and 10,000 square feet of retail space, according to CommercialEdge. The same source reveals that United Overseas Bank originated the construction financing. One uCity Square is expected to receive LEED Silver certification.

Common-area amenities include four winter gardens, private outdoor terraces, speculative lab and office spaces with high ceilings and a rooftop terrace. University City Science Center also developed community programs for the facility, including the Entrepreneurs Clubhouse, Venture Café Philadelphia, Quorum and FirstHand.

The approximately 5-acre property is close to multiple light rail and subway stations, 2 miles from downtown Philadelphia, 8 miles from Philadelphia International Airport and within 17 miles of Northeast Philadelphia Airport. The tenant roster includes Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Exponent, Penn Engineering and Century Therapeutics, among others.

An innovation-driven market

The office and lab facility that broke ground in 2020 was part of Ventas’ joint venture with GIC, a partnership focusing on Research & Innovation developments for an initial cost of $930 million. The first four projects, that had Ventas as majority owner, comprised One uCity Square, Drexel University’s academic facility, Pitt Immune Transplant and Therapy Center for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a Class A, R&D center anchored by Arizona State University.

There are multiple life science developments in diverse phases of construction in the metro. Brandywine Realty Trust and Drexel University topped out a 435,000-square-foot, 14-story life science building in Schuylkill Yards, a $3.5 billion mixed-use master plan project in University City district.

In August, MRA Group secured $63 million in additional financing for the redevelopment of CRISP, a 164-acre, 14-building campus in Wilmington, Del. The redevelopment of the former DuPont Chestnut Run Laboratory campus will result in renovated buildings for lab, R&D and advanced manufacturing uses.