Long Market Property Partners has acquired a 22,043-square-foot research and development property at 1440 4th St. in Berkeley, California, with plans to convert the property into a life science use. The investor secured $9.75 million in financing to purchase and reposition the asset.

The property was built in 1948 as a warehouse facility, but it is currently an obsolete single-story property with 18-foot clear heights. It also has unique architectural features like polished concrete floors and high wood barrel truss ceilings as well as 32 parking spaces. Long Market will make improvements to the property to make it more appealing to life science users, which are hungry for supply in the Bay Area.

There is tremendous demand in the Berkeley Area for life science product. The San Francisco area continues to be a top market for life sciences. It is one of the three legacy markets, along with Boston and San Diego, where industry clusters are most long standing, and where a vast inventory of lab properties already exist. Those three markets continuing to rank as the top life science hubs nationally, according to research from JLL.