Longfellow Real Estate Partners has acquired a nine-property office portfolio in San Diego from PS Business Parks for $315.4 million. It plans to convert the 371,281-square-foot property into a life science campus.

The properties are located on 20.5 acres at 6150, 6160, 6370, 6440, 6450, 6540, 6640 and 6650 Lusk Blvd. and 10225 Barnes Canyon Rd. in the Sorrento Mesa area of San Diego, and all are two stories. The property is zoned for office, light industrial and other commercial uses, which allows Longfellow the opportunity to pursue a life science use. The area is already home to several notable life science users, including Scripps Research, UC San Diego, the Salk Institute and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.

Investors have been rushing into the San Diego market to capitalize on the growing life science demand—and conversation projects have been popular. In a similar deal, Luminous Capital Management and Virtus Real Estate Capital formed a joint venture to convert an industrial warehouse into a life science facility. The joint venture has secured $33 million in equity capital for the project. The joint venture plans to renovate the property into a facility that will be suitable as a high-image industrial asset for life sciences manufacturing uses, ideally for the production of pharmaceuticals and other therapeutics. To accomplish this, the joint venture will create 28-foot clear heights.