5 Developments to Watch in Philadelphia

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The rapidly growing Philadelphia life sciences sector is hungry for lab and manufacturing space. Real estate developers are meeting that demand with ambitious projects to build, rebuild, and overbuild sites to produce facilities that will retain and attract life sciences companies.

These projects are taking advantage of the favorable infrastructure that made Philly a manufacturing powerhouse throughout the 20th century. The reinvention of the Budd Campus as a life sciences manufacturing destination is a shining example. Plymouth Group, in collaboration with Centerbridge Partners, is transforming the former steel processing giant into 2 million square feet of state-of-the art research and manufacturing space. The Budd Campus continues to grow as Colliers Life Sciences, Inc oversees leasing of the facility.

Pennovation Works

The Pennovation Works site has been “an incubator for industry and innovation in the Philadelphia area for over 200 years”. In 2010, the nearby University of Pennsylvania reinvigorated an old paint factory and chemical research facility into the Pennovation Center, a 58,000 square foot incubator for startups originating at UPenn and throughout the region.

The Pennovation Works site also features the new Pennovation Lab, a graduate space appealing to promising early-stage companies that have outgrown incubators.

In light of the growing successes of the CGT initiatives of UPenn and the Gene Therapy Program, an additional $365 million plan is in the works to expand Pennovation Works incubation and growth space specifically for innovations in the life sciences. Most of the new space will be used for research and development, but 65,000 of the 500,000 square feet have been carved out for manufacturing.

This growth project is led by Longfellow Real Estate Partners. Construction of the building, at 34th Street and Grays Ferry Avenue, is slated to begin next year, with an estimated opening in 2025.

Full article courtesy of BioBuzz: https://biobuzz.io/5-real-estate-development-projects-to-watch-in-philadelphia/