Right now, 5 Davis Drive in Research
Triangle Park is just a building, housing the Hamner Institute, a center
focused on chemical and drug safety research. But the top exec of the
company that bought the property for $20 million in 2013 sees a thriving
urban center in its 10-year plan, with more than 1 million square feet
of rentable space for life science innovators big and small.
California-based Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE) CEO Joel Marcus'
goal is to replicate what his firm did with its other clusters, massive
research campuses in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Mission Bay, California;
and New York City.
“It will be like a mini-city,” he says,
envisioning thousands of people, milling in and out of offices,
laboratories and accelerator space. Initially, his team will refurbish
the 150,000-square-foot building already at the site, laying the
groundwork for further development.
The goal is to create a mammoth RTP innovation cluster, called the Alexandria Center for Science, Technology and Agriculture.
After years of planning, he's ready to pull the trigger on Phase 1,
having announced specific investments to be housed in the new campus.
Alexandria Venture Investments, the firm’s venture capital arm, intends
to invest in what’s called the MedBlue Incubator, which was founded in
2013 to identify promising new science and technology coming out of the
departments of surgery, pathology and anesthesiology at Duke University
Medical Center. Additionally, ARE is opening what’s called Alexandria
LaunchLabs at the campus, taking over an accelerator Hamner already
operates at the facility, complete with nine startups, including the recently acquired Phoundry Pharmaceuticals.
Alexandria Venture Investments and Accelerator Corporation, a
biotechnology investment and management company, will be establishing a
venture investment and technology scouting presence within LaunchLabs in
RTP. And additional startup space is part of the plan.
“Our venture arm will be very active down there,” Marcus predicts. “We think this whole effort will be really catalytic.”
And the proximity to another bullish project, Research Triangle Foundation’s Park Center,
further fuels the idea. Park Center is where officials have pledged to
introduce residential, retail and restaurant elements to RTP. And the
thousands Marcus expects to work at his facility on Davis Drive will
benefit from that “work, live, play” concept.
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