LIFE SCIENCE DEVELOPER BUYS COSTA VERDE MALL NEAR UTC

Alexandria buys site for $125M, plans on office and lab space plus 200-room hotel

Leading biotech office builder Alexandria Real Estate has purchased the Costa Verde Center, a strip mall opposite Westfield UTC, to amplify its vision for a life science campus connected to the trolley line and its nearby properties.

The previous property owner, Jacksonville-based Regency Centers, said in a news release this week that it sold the 13.9-acre site — sandwiched between La Jolla Village Drive and Nobel Drive at 8560 Genesee Ave. — for $125 million. Dan Ryan, who is co-chief investment officer for Alexandria, confirmed the deal, which closed on Wednesday.

“This is absolutely one of the best sites on the West Coast,” Ryan told the UnionTribune. “It’ll go from being an old, dilapidated retail center to a vibrant, exciting community center and we’re really enthusiastic for the potential of the site.”

The Costa Verde Center, built in 1989, is a grocery store-anchored, neighborhood shopping center that is best known for its McDonald’s, Chevron and Bristol Farms, although parts of the strip mall are now vacant ahead of a long-planned revitalization. The site is at the terminus of the all-new UC San Diego Blue Line, where an elevated platform connects to both Westfield UTC on the west and the Costa Verde site on the east.

Regency and Alexandria were, until recently, working together in a joint venture to overhaul the property as a transit-connected urban job center complemented by community shops, restaurants and a hotel. In November 2020, the partners secured City Council approval for a community plan amendment, allowing them to add 400,000 square feet of office and lab space and a 200-room hotel on top of the site’s already entitled 178,000 square feet of retail space.

That plan remains intact for the time being, although Alexandria is reviewing its options, Ryan said.

In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the prolific life science lab developer said it was planning to form a “mega campus” by tying Costa Verde’s office and lab offering to the firm’s other properties in the adjacent area.