BioMed Adds $9M-Plus Tech Center Property

MALVERN, PA-BioMed Realty Trust has acquired the 76,389-sf office/lab building at 2-30 Spring Mill Dr. in Great Valley Corporate Center for $9.4 million, or about $123 per sf. This joins its earlier acquisition of an adjacent 104,400-sf building, and the REIT, which specializes in biotech and pharmaceutical space, is creating the Technology Center at Malvern within the Great Valley Park.

The newly acquired building is approximately 20 years old and is currently 95% leased. Mike Brown, senior vice president in the Philadelphia office of Trammell Crow Co., negotiated the transaction. The seller is locally based Penns Wood Spring Mill Associates LP. Brown will also handle leasing for BioMed, which is based in San Diego and has offices in Berwyn, New York City, Boston and San Francisco.

Brown tells GlobeSt.com that the building currently has one biotech tenant. “BioMed will retrofit the vacant space for lab use and custom retrofit additional space for biotech tenants as current leases expire.” He declined to disclose rent rates, “because they will vary, depending on the configurations and fit-outs required by each new tenant,” Brown says. “The facility is designed to provide lab and office space to small biotech firms as they grow. By leasing class A lab space that is ready for turnkey operation, they can get a running start without having to spend time and money to purchase and retrofit a building.”

The concept is one that BioMed has implemented in other areas that have a substantial presence of life science firms. It owns 52 properties aggregating about 7.7 million sf in 11 states. Among them are seven in the Philadelphia area with an aggregate of more than 775,000 sf. Brown says this five-county area accounts for 55% of Pennsylvania’s total bioscience employment and wages, and there are 200 companies in the state that are engaged in biopharmaceutical operations.