Granta Park is BioMed Realty Trust’s Point of Entry into Europe
BioMed Realty Trust, the San Diego-based REIT that handles biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry properties, has recently made a move on the European market with the purchase of a research community comprising 11 laboratory and office buildings.
By Alex Girda, Associate Editor
Cambridge, England—BioMed Realty Trust, the San Diego-based REIT that handles biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry properties, has recently made a move on the European market with the purchase of a research community comprising 11 laboratory and office buildings. The Granta Park property is located in Cambridge, UK, and boasts 472,200 square feet of space.
The existing space could be expanded by as much as 138,000 square feet due to development and expansion rights included in the deal. BioMed paid a total fee of 126.8 million pounds sterling, or $196 million, transaction costs not included. The life science research park will rake in a cash net operating income of approximately 10.2 million GBP or $15.8 million, according to estimates provided by BioMed.
Granta Park is currently under contract with 11 residents who occupy the entire available space. The resident roster is made of mainly global pharmaceutical or biotechnology-oriented companies. Names on Granta Park’s marquee include longstanding residents MedImmune and Pfizer, while names such as Gilead Sciences, Pharmaceutical Product Development, UCB and Vernalis are fairly new to the Cambridge complex.
The property benefits from an exceptional placement in the Cambridge research community, one of the finest in the world. The University of Cambridge, boasting a history of over 800 years, has attracted in excess of 280 million GBP in research grants in 2011 alone. Around 20 percent of those honored with the Nobel Prize for chemistry and science have attended the world-renowned institution, and were part of its research community. The university’s science cluster reportedly endorses 1,000 science and technology companies, as well as the world’s largest charitable medical research organization in the world, The Wellcome Trust.
BioMed Realty’s CEO Alan D. Gold noted in a press statement that the expansion of the company’s biotech-centric portfolio into the “premier life science cluster in the United Kingdom and arguably all of Europe” is an exciting move on the company’s part. He also mentioned the fact that the complex’s proximity to research institutes of the caliber found in Cambridge is one of the “elements that mark a strong, self-sustaining life science cluster.”
BioMed Realty Trust Inc. is currently involved in real estate that caters to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, scientific research institutions, government agencies and entities involved in the life sciences industry in general. Granta Park will now be added to a portfolio of approximately 12.5 million rentable square feet that the company owns or has interests in.
