Amgen Lines up Space in Bay Area's Gateway of the Pacific Development

JHVE Photo / Shutterstock

 

Pharma giant Amgen has become the most recent tenant of the Bay Area’s massive life sciences campus known as Gateway of the Pacific. This week, Amgen announced the 240,000-square-foot facility, which is still under construction, will house the company’s Bay Area employees focused on cardiometabolic, inflammation and oncology research.

Flavius Martin, Amgen’s South San Francisco-based head of research in oncology and inflammation, said the new location in the Gateway of the Pacific will “foster even greater collaboration” among team members and lead to an acceleration of its R&D process. Additionally, Martin said the new site will “provide a venue for increased engagement with the Bay Area’s abundant scientific and educational communities.”

In its brief announcement this week, Amgen said the new home in The Gateway of Pacific campus will be a facility that boosts collaboration via modern work and laboratory spaces. The new site will include modular green wet labs and green molecular lab design. It will provide a flexible and a customizable state-of-the-art scientific research and development facility to support scientific research.

Gateway of the Pacific is being developed by BioMed Realty. The new part of the campus under development is scheduled to open in 2022. When the site is complete, Gateway of the Pacific will provide 1.3 million square feet of space for life science companies. It is being constructed in three phases. The portion of space Amgen will take over is in the Phase II aspect of construction. The Phase II portion of Gateway of the Pacific will provide 430,000 square feet to the development. Construction on Phase II began in early 2019. When complete, Amgen will occupy 55% of the total space from that phase, BioMed said. According to the realtor, the second phase of the project is comprised of two interconnected eight and nine-story buildings with flexible floor plates to allow for seamless integration of laboratory and office space.

In addition to enhanced R&D laboratory and office space at the new nine-story facility, which is scheduled to open in early 2022, the new campus will house a variety of meeting spaces, an amenity center that includes a number of dining options, a health club and a variety of outdoor recreation areas.

“The fundamentals of the Bay Area life science industry are stronger than ever as we continue to provide real estate solutions to fit the needs of top-tier innovation companies,” Jon Bergschneider, BioMed’s chief development officer said in a statement. “Having a company of Amgen’s stature join the Gateway of Pacific community further adds to the significance of the life-changing research taking place on this unique campus.”

Phase III, which has not yet begun, will provide an additional 350,000 square feet of Class A lab and office space to the campus, BioMed said.

In 2018, AbbVie announced it had leased 479,000 square feet of space in the Phase I portion of Gateway of the Pacific. AbbVie became the first tenant in the site and planned to have up to 1,500 employees located in that facility. The Phase I portion included 555,000 square feet of state-of-the-art laboratory and office space and a first-class amenity center housing multiple dining options, a health club, informal meeting spaces and outdoor recreation areas.