San Rafael-based Wareham Development Co. is pushing forward with construction of a 100,000 square-foot speculative lab project in Emeryville.
Tup Fisher, director of real estate investments for Washington Capital Management Inc. in its downtown San Francisco office, says his company and Wareham are close to closing a deal whereby Washington would invest about $18 million in equity in the project. The investment would not include construction financing, which is to be provided by an as-yet-to-be determined third-party construction lender, he said.
Wareham declined comment for this story.
According to officials from the city of Emeryville, the developer pulled foundation permits for the project during the first week in February. Remediation work on the site related to underground storage tanks has already started. The project, Emeryville Greenway Station, is at 5850 Hollis St. and 5812 Hollis St. It is expected to take 18 months to construct and is intended as a multi-tenant or single-tenant property.
Bill Nork, a senior vice president with the life-science team at Cornish & Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank, says vacancy rates in biotech and life-science properties in the Emeryville-Berkeley submarket were below 1 percent at the end of last year. “There just aren’t many places for companies in the industry to grow into,” Nork said. Nork will be the leasing agent for Greenway Station.
“There is going to be growth on both the government and private-company sides for alternative-energy resources and bio-tech services companies. There is definitely going to be demand from these kinds of tenants in the future,” he said.
The total square footage of life-science properties in the Emeryville-Berkeley market is 1.45 million square feet, according to the Cornish & Carey’s fourth quarter 2010 report.
Greenway Station will be the second San Francisco Bay Area development project that Washington Capital Management has invested in of late. The other is the 82-unit, 33 North condominium project in San Rafael. The developer is Monahan Pacific Corp., which is based in San Rafael.
The real estate manager represents more than 40 institutional investors, the majority of them union pension funds.