NEW YORK CITY—The city is looking for developers and investors interesting in creating a hub for life sciences research and development and is seeding the initiative with up to $100 million in capital funding and is also offering three city-owned sites in East Harlem, Kips Bay and Long Island City.
The New York City Economic Development Corp. has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for the applied life sciences hub and is looking for a development team that will build out at least 300,000 square feet of space at one of the three city-owned sites, at a new ground-up development or a retrofit of an existing building at a privately-owned site. Proposals are due on May 17.
City officials term the applied life sciences hub as the “signature initiative” for the $500-million LifeSci NYC, and a key component of Mayor Bill de Blasio's New York Works plan to create 100,000 quality jobs over the next decade.
“The Applied Life Sciences Hub will help make New York City a true global leader in life sciences and the good, accessible jobs being created in this growing sector,” says NYCEDC president and CEO James Patchett. “We envision this hub as a 'Bell Labs for Biotech', a place where the best and brightest spin out new discoveries that turn into new cures and new businesses.”
The city's three-owned properties to be considered by respondents include 2469 Second Ave. in East Harlem; 455 First Ave. in Kips Bay and 44-36 44th Drive in Long Island City.
The 2469 Second Ave. site in East Harlem is currently a temporary parking lot and construction staging location for the New York Proton Center project. The 48,462-square-foot site owned by Housing Preservation and Development has development rights of up to 150,000 square feet subject to compliance with existing approvals. The site, which could be available this year, is part of the city's East 125th Street development project that is projected to yield up to 1,000 residential units, 770,000 square feet of commercial space and 30,000 square feet of community facility-oriented space.
The Kips Bay site at 455 First Ave. currently features a 335,000-square-foot building (owned by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene) that has substantial deferred maintenance, according to the city's RFEI. The building, which could accommodate another 88,500 square feet of commercial development, is a mix of office and wet lab space that is currently occupied by DOHMH's Public Health Laboratory, New York University and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center.
In 2013 the city issued a RFP to evaluate rehabilitation and modernizing the property, but ultimately decided not to move forward with the program. The city is in the process of relocating the Public Health Laboratory, which is expected to be finished in 2023, at which point the property could be delivered vacant to an RFEII respondent. The site is located near a host of health care facility and just two blocks south of the approximately 700,000 square-foot Alexandria Center for the Life Sciences.
The property at 44-36 44th Drive in Long Island City features an existing 585,000-square-foot, six-story building that offers another possible 180,000 square feet of additional commercial development. The property is jointly owned by the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation. The earliest the property could be available is 2023 depending on a relocation of DOE operations there that currently include offices and a logistics hub.
Nearby the site are two city-owned waterfront parcels that are used as a DOE parking lot and a DOT facility. The city is eyeing those parcels for 1.5 million square feet of future development that would involve approximately 1,000 residential units, 400,000 square feet of commercial space, 100,000 square feet of light industrial space, 25,000 square feet of arts space and a 600-seat school.
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John Jordan
John Jordan is a veteran journalist with 36 years of print and digital media experience.
