Public Market Emeryville to become biotech hub after property purchase
hMhRYVILLh >> Public Market Emeryville and some adjacent property have been bought in a nearly $119 million deal by a Canada-based investment group that intends to convert the Emeryville mixed-use complex into a biotech hub.
Oxford Properties and City Center Realty Partners have teamed up to buy nearly 10 acres at and near 5959 Shellmound St. in Emeryville, according to Alameda County property records that were filed on Jan. 7.
Canada- based Oxford Properties and San Francisco-based City Center Realty Partners paid $118.8 million for the site, the county documents show.
Brokers Steven Golubchik and Nicholas Bicardo with commercial real estate firm Newmark arranged the purchase.
Prior to the transaction, City Center Realty had already converted some of the existing spaces to life sciences operations.
“City Center looks forward to our collaboration with Oxford on this project and continuing our successful transformation of Public Market Emeryville from a suburban-style collection of buildings and surface parking lots into a premium mixed-use life science campus in the East Bay,” said Mark Stefan, president and co-founder of City Center Realty Partners.
The Newmark property brokers noted that the purchase gives the new owners a chance to quickly expand and convert the site into a biotech hub.
“Public Market Emeryville is a rare opportunity to gain immediate scale through life science conversion and development in one of the fastest-growing life science clusters in the United States,” Golubchik said
The purchase includes existing lab, office, restaurant, and retail spaces, a popular food hall, and a big chunk of vacant land, according to the public records and the new owners.
“Public Market Emeryville is the perfect example of a well-located site, which has historically been retail, that had the proper story and surrounding demand drivers to pivot and reposition a large component to an alternative use,” Bicardo said.
The just-completed purchase includes 36,000 square feet of ground-floor first-generation lab space, the food hall, and approximately 60,000 square feet of existing office and retail space that is slated to be converted to lab space, Oxford Properties said.
“Growing a meaningfully sized life sciences business represents one of our highest conviction investment strategies and top priorities,” said Chad Remis, an executive vice president with Oxford Properties.
A potential major upside for the buyers: a big stretch of empty land that’s next to a rail line and the existing buildings in Public Market Emeryville. City officials have already approved the development of a biotech or life sciences project on the vacant parcel.
“Top on our agenda is the construction of a new life science building directly across from the food hall on Shellmound Street,” according to City Center Realty Partners.