MIAMI-The University of Miami Life Science & Technology Park (UMLSTP) has inked a series of leases totaling 10,000 square feet. Scheduled to open in less than three months, the building is nearly 45% pre-leased.
The new tenants include the Community Blood Centers of South Florida and medical device firm Emunamedica, LLC. The tenants will take up residence in park’s first phase building, a 252,000-square-foot facility housing wet and dry labs, offices and retail space. UMLSTP has already inked deals with Daya Medicals, the University of Miami Tissue Bank, national intellectual property law firm Novak Druce + Quigg, and the Enterprise Development Corporation of South Florida.
“We are beginning to see the net positive impacts of the project on South Florida's economy,” William Hunter, project leasing manager for UMLSTP developer Wexford, tells GlobeSt.com. “These leases represent dozens of new jobs in today’s market and that’s a good sign. This is exactly what the project was built to do.”
Hunter is betting the park’s tenant diversity will be a key ingredient in the clusters’ halo effect that takes shape as the park matures. The leasing team is in advanced negotiations for more than 100,000 square feet of deals—and not just from the immediate area. Hunter says companies across the country and around the world are eyeing the UMLSTP.
The Community Blood Centers of South Florida is one of the nation’s largest specialty blood banks and the region’s chief blood collection and distribution organization, servicing roughly 95% of the hospitals located from West Palm Beach to Key West. The nonprofit organization is opening specialty research labs for compatibility testing of blood samples at the park, as well as a distribution center that will serve medical centers in the area, including research institutes and hospitals located within the Miami Health District. The Community Blood Centers of South Florida will operate the facility 24-hours a day, employing approximately 20 people.
Emunamedica will relocate its research and development functions as well as corporate offices from Broward County to UMLSTP’s Innovation Center. The Innovation Center will open along with the main building in June of 2011. Emunamedica is developing a diagnostic technology designed to measure healing rates in ulcer wounds. The firm plans to create approximately 25 new jobs at the facility.
“The project’s newest leases represent positive absorption of commercial space in Miami, not just movement of tenants from one building to another,” says Richard Schuchts, senior vice president for Jones Lang LaSalle, Wexford’s leasing agents at UMLSTP. “Each of the park’s tenants are either expanding their local presence or establishing a new foothold in the region.”
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