Category: News

Longfellow is set to development more than 265,000 square feet of lab and office space within the revolutionary campus located in the heart of RTP

Research Triangle, NC (September 21, 2023) – Longfellow Real Estate Partners, the largest privately held investor and developer of life science buildings, unveiled Via Labs at Hub RTP as the new name and brand of its life science development that is currently underway at the revolutionary Hub RTP project in the Research Triangle.

This marquee building and innovative development located on a 1.5-acre lot will be part of Research Triangle Park’s two million square foot master planned development that will continue to transform RTP from a corporate campus into a true live-work-play ecosystem that will cater to the needs of leading international companies.

The 265,000 square foot project will feature Class A life science and innovative space that will showcase the growth of the Research Triangle and double down on Longfellow’s commitment to invest in and support the life science industry in North Carolina.

“Seeing the vision of Via Labs come to life along with the new brand is truly exciting,” said Greg Capps, Managing Director at Longfellow Real Estate Partners. “Our team is committed to supporting the life science industry and ecosystem as well as tremendous community projects such as Hub RTP – the vision and impact of this project will be seen for generations to come in the Research Triangle.”

The Via Labs project stands to be a connection between the proud history of innovation in the Research Triangle and the possibilities of tomorrow. By serving the active and robust life science demand in the Research Triangle, this location will deliver on Longfellow’s vision to provide state-of-the-art lab space combined with neighborhood feel and high-quality community amenities. Longfellow will also implement the company’s proprietary tenant experience platform Elevate^TM, which will build off the local offerings and incorporate on-site facilities through custom programming to heighten the campus experience for future tenants and community members.

“Working with a highly sought after company like Longfellow Real Estate Partners validates the strength of Hub RTP, Research Triangle Park’s new vibrant downtown,” said Scott Levitan, President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of NC. “Including this life science development continues to build out the masterplan that supports the office, retail, hotel, and residential components in a holistic way.”

Longfellow has spearheaded the development of life science clusters throughout the region, including key campuses located in Wake County, Research Triangle Park, and Downtown Durham. With more than 16.5 million square feet located in key biotech markets across the United States and United Kingdom, Longfellow continues to partner with and support innovative companies and institutions in the leading metro regions.

For additional information and leasing inquiries regarding the Via Labs development, please visit: www.ViaLabsatHubRTP.com.

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About Longfellow Real Estate Partners
Longfellow Real Estate Partners is a real estate investment company founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009. With approximately 200 employees in bio-innovation clusters across the US and UK, Longfellow partners with renowned universities and pioneering life sciences and technology companies to help bring visionary ideas to life. Driven by a passion to support those working to advance the human condition, Longfellow continues to grow and expand in the name of scientific progress. For more information, visit https://lfrep.com.

Press/Media Contact
Casey Angel: Director, Corporate Communications
+1 (619) 400-7990 • cangel@lfrep.com

For more than a decade, Longfellow has pioneered a hospitality-level approach to the client experience that goes beyond amenities – and today the Longfellow team is continuing to push the boundaries of what our firm can offer partners, clients, and communities. Longfellow prides itself in creating thoughtful, curated workplace amenities and experiences that spark camaraderie and inspire growth.

As told through the lens of our customers and those utilizing the amenity platform across Longfellow’s international portfolio, Elevate takes centerstage in the latest video.

Informed by extensive community outreach and involvement, the development will now enter the CEQA process

Redwood City, CA (July 25, 2023) – Longfellow Real Estate Partners, the largest privately held investor and developer of life science buildings, presented its project for Redwood LIFE: Evolve to the Redwood City Council last night after last month’s unanimous recommendation by Planning Commission to Council to initiate the environmental review.

With unanimous approval from Redwood City Council to start the environmental review process, the development will now enter the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which is intended to study and inform government decisionmakers and the public about potential developments and possible future outcomes for the community at large.

“Our team is extremely thankful to Redwood City Council and Planning Commission for their thoughtful review of the project – we are excited to see the results of an in-depth environmental review and ultimately taking the next step in making this revolutionary campus a reality,” said Peter Fritz, Senior Director of Development at Longfellow. “Over the past two years, Longfellow has had the pleasure of working with our neighbors, community stakeholders, and local government to inform and shape Redwood LIFE: Evolve, doubling down on our commitment to the long-term success and well-being of our community.”

The carefully phased development being proposed and studied will have approximately 3.3 million square feet including state-of-the-art lab and innovation office space, a 104-room hotel, a 14,600 SF Amenity Center with a 1,400 SF dedicated community space, and over 47 acres of green spaces and trails, including four new parks, that will provide enhanced recreational opportunities and gathering spaces for neighbors and tenants. At full build-out, the project will transform acres of asphalt to green space and landscaping by reducing 97% of surface parking and increasing open space by 163%.

In addition to the world-class life science and bio-innovation companies the campus will attract, the Redwood LIFE: Evolve project will also bring equitable community benefits that align with Redwood City’s Strategic Plan for Children and Youth, Transportation, and Housing. Among the many community benefits, Longfellow is committing to invest $85 million to support the creation and preservation of affordable housing, partnering with Stand Up San Mateo County to invest over $2 million to close the gap in the critical local childcare shortage, and much more.

Redwood LIFE: Evolve will also promote and accelerate environmental sustainability by replacing outdated buildings with a modern, all-electric campus designed to meet LEED Gold standards. Central to the campus and community plan is advancing Redwood City’s sustainability goals by increasing renewable energy, using native landscaping to reduce outside water usage by 50%, and restoring natural habitats along the water’s edge. Longfellow is also set to invest in sea-level rise resiliency by providing necessary levee improvements along the slough and work with regional partners to strategically address sea-level rise.

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About Longfellow Real Estate Partners
Longfellow Real Estate Partners is a real estate investment company founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009. With approximately 200 employees in bio-innovation clusters across the US and UK, Longfellow partners with renowned universities and pioneering life sciences and technology companies to help bring visionary ideas to life. Driven by a passion to support those working to advance the human condition, Longfellow continues to grow and expand in the name of scientific progress. For more information, visit https://lfrep.com.

Press/Media Contact
Casey Angel: Director, Corporate Communications
+1 (619) 400-7990 • cangel@lfrep.com

Durham, NC (July 17, 2023) – Building off the success of their Ninth Street location in Durham, Flying Bull Beer Company announced its second location in Durham, located at 300 Morris Street in the Durham Innovation District (Durham ID). The new location will feature over 5,500 square feet of unique indoor gathering space, complete with a view into the active brewery, casual sitting area for groups, cocktail bar, and more.

Flying Bull Beer Company is a community brewery offering locally perfected craft beers as well as Carolina-born guest beers and ciders, which was recently recognized as the 2023 Best Brewery in Durham by Durham Magazine.

Durham ID is the revolutionary, 27-acre project in the heart of downtown Durham led by Longfellow Real Estate Partners, the largest privately held investor and developer of life science and innovation space. The comprehensive, borderless platform for discovery within Durham ID is woven into the fabric of the City by incorporating local community amenities like Flying Bull Beer Company and 321 Coffee along with publicly accessible spaces like Morris Green Park across the street.

“We are thrilled to welcome Flying Bull Beer Company to the Durham Innovation District and the Longfellow family,” said Greg Capps, Managing Director at Longfellow. “Incorporating local, family-run favorites is at the heart of our culture. Supporting our local businesses and economy with these key partners is vital to activating the space and creating a fun, exciting environment that the whole community can enjoy.”

As the Durham ID space is activated with local favorites and green space, the outdoor seating area of Flying Bull Beer Company will tie seamlessly into the newly developed Downtown Durham Social District that Durham City Council unanimously approved to go into effect in December of 2022.

“We are super excited for this opportunity to ‘spread our wings’ into the Durham Innovation District. What we love about this new space is that it will allow us to introduce craft cocktails and food created with the same passion we put into our craft beer,” said Flying Bull Beer Company owners Joel Miles and Anna Bloch. “The brewery world is all about collaborations and we can’t think of a better fit than the Flying Bull Beer Company and Durham ID.”

With construction starting in July at Durham ID, the grand opening for Flying Bull Beer Company is scheduled for December 2023. For more information on the project, visit: https://www.flyingbullbeercompany.com/ or https://durhamid.com.

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About Longfellow Real Estate Partners
Longfellow Real Estate Partners is a real estate investment company founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009. With approximately 200 employees in bio-innovation clusters across the US and UK, Longfellow partners with renowned universities and pioneering life sciences and technology companies to help bring visionary ideas to life. Driven by a passion to support those working to advance the human condition, Longfellow continues to grow and expand in the name of scientific progress. For more information, visit https://lfrep.com.

Press/Media Contact
Casey Angel: Director, Corporate Communications
+1 (619) 400-7990 • cangel@lfrep.com

Co-founder discusses the state of the market, current projects and future plans

BOSTON – Perhaps not surprisingly, given their ready access to capital, the four largest owners of life sciences real estate (LSRE) are publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), namely Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. (NYSE:ARE), the BioMed Realty unit of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE: BX), Healthpeak Properties Inc. (NYSE: PEAK) and Ventas Inc. (NYSE: VTR).

But you might be surprised to learn that the firth largest LSRE firm is a private company: Longfellow Real Estate Partners. Founded in 2009, the Boston-based development and investment firm boasts a portfolio of about 16 million square feet, with projects in major life sciences clusters in the United States and the United Kingdom.

BREI recently reached out to Co-Founder and CEO Adam Sichol to learn more about Longfellow, its current and its plans for the future. Here’s a transcript of our exclusive interview.

BREI: Thanks for chatting with us. Would you like to start by giving us some background about Longfellow and your role with the firm?

Sichol: Thank you so much for having us. My name is Adam Sichol and I am co-founder and CEO of Longfellow Real Estate Partners. My business partner, Jamie Peschel, and I founded Longfellow together 14 years ago in Boston where our headquarters are located today. Since then, we’ve grown into the largest privately held investor and developer of life science buildings with close to 200 employees and 16 million square feet in bio-innovation clusters across the United States and United Kingdom.

Longfellow is a vertically integrated company that partners with some of the most visionary leaders across the life science ecosystem, from universities and large companies all the way to small and midsize startups. We provide our tenant partners the highly functional and flexible lab space to support their research and life-changing work.

BREI: Thanks for the background. What are the biggest opportunities and challenges for the company today – and, for that matter, for the life sciences real estate sector as a whole?

Sichol: Life science continues to be an incredibly important sector and industry for investment, government funding, and provides a field of constant discovery and growth. There are roughly 10,000 rare diseases known to man and only 10 percent of those have an FDA-approved therapy for treatment. The life science community requires highly functional and specialized lab space to continue to innovate, and the Longfellow team has a long track record of both developing and operating that type of lab space to ensure that our occupiers can continue their life saving work.

BREI: What sets Longfellow apart from the other top players in the life sciences real estate space?

Sichol: Longfellow has always put people first. We build first class and highly amentized campuses that enable us to prioritize the people within our buildings.

For instance, Longfellow has pioneered a hospitality-level approach to the tenant experience at our projects with an amenity program we call Elevate. Each campus throughout our portfolio has a uniquely curated set of on-site amenities, including programmed events and classes. We are able to make long-term connections between our tenant partners and the communities within which they work by integrating local businesses like coffee shops, restaurants, breweries and more into our spaces… it really is all about creating unexpected connections, serendipitous meetings and unique opportunities for growth.

Doubling down on the people first approach, we’ve been intentional about showcasing our tenant partners and working with them to facilitate their research and growth. The world in life science moves fast and requires a collaborative partner for success. Longfellow is proud work with tenant partners on their specific requirements and provide the space that supports every company’s best asset, their people.

BREI: Can you tell us a bit about some of your current projects?

Sichol: One of our most exciting projects kicked off in February in the San Francisco Bay Area when we held the groundbreaking for Avia Labs in Millbrae. This development is in one of the most ideal transit-oriented locations, just steps away from the Millbrae Transit Center, the busiest transit hub on the West Coast that includes both Caltrain and BART, and just minutes from San Francisco International Airport. As our Longfellow team continues to put sustainability first, Avia Labs will be the first all-electric life science campus in California, emphasizing energy efficiency and quality of life for future tenant partners and neighbors alike.

In addition to exciting ground-up developments like Avia Labs, Longfellow is also currently converting several innovative projects across the country, including Hatch Labs in New York City. Located at 43-10 23rd Street in Long Island City, this seven-story building was Longfellow’s first acquisition in NYC and will offer rooftop views of the city, along with more than 214,000 square feet of state-of-the-art lab space for life science companies. New York City has all of the key ingredients for major growth as a life science hub, and we are excited to start bringing this reimagined space to market later in 2023.

Longfellow also recently expanded to the United Kingdom, opening an office in London and closing on our first acquisition of Capital Park in Cambridge. The cross-collaboration between the growing, local U.K. team and our U.S.-based operations is energizing as both teams are actively learning from each other. As our footprint takes shape at the innovation-focused development of Capital Park we are also assessing new opportunities across the Golden Triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge.

BREI: What are your goals for Longfellow for the rest of 2023? For the longer term?

Sichol: Longfellow’s 2023 is a year of deliverables. We’ve grown our projects and team substantially in 2021 and 2022 and are now planning and bringing to market several projects across the U.S. and in the U.K. As we see more groundbreakings and development expansions, we are excited to bring new tenant partners onto Longfellow campuses and support their life-changing work as their preferred and strategic real estate partners.

(Interview courtesy of Bioscience Real Estate Insights: https://wolfmediausa.com/2023/07/09/life-sciences-five-questions-for-longfellow-ceo-adam-sichol/)

MID-ATLANTIC LIFE SCIENCES & BIOTECH SUMMIT

LUNCH & LEARN: HOW PUBLIC OFFICIALS, UNIVERSITIES, AND CRE CONTINUE TO ATTRACT LIFE SCIENCE TALENT TO THE D.C. REGION

Longfellow Real Estate Partners is proud to announce that our very own Adam Sichol, Jamie Peschel, and Jessica Brock have been named to Commercial Observer’s Power 100 List for the 3rd Straight Year. The Power 100 highlights the top players across commercial real estate and their impact on the industry.

2022 highlights from Longfellow’s year that was include the firm’s first international acquisition in Cambridge, United Kingdom, expansion to the Philadelphia Market through a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, breaking ground on key ground-up projects in San Diego and the Bay Area, and much more.

For full story, visit: https://commercialobserver.com/power-series/power-100-2023/player/adam-sichol-jamie-peschel-and-jessica-brock/

A big congratulations goes out to Longfellow Real Estate Partners’ own Catalina Miller-Booth for her selection as one of the top Administrative professionals in Southern California by the San Diego Business Journal here —> https://lnkd.in/gchrrnKq

Catalina serves as Administrative Assistant for Longfellow’s San Diego home in the Biovista Campus, responsible for daily office management while partnering with the Chief Investment Officer & Managing Director, Director of Corporate Communications, and other office staff on project delivery.