UCSD TO BREAK GROUND ON SCIENCE RESEARCH PARK
By Michael Buchanan
The Daily Transcript
February 16, 2005 -The long-awaited Science Research Park at the University of California, San Diego is scheduled to have its first tenant move in come April 2006.
The La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology and Kirin Pharma USA are scheduled to hold a ceremonial groundbreaking Thursday at the site of their new, 140,000-square-foot building, located on the eastern side of the campus adjacent to the East Campus Medical Center complex.
The building is the first slated for the 30-acre research park, which is designed to foster collaborations between the university's research groups and entities involved with scientific, technical or industrial pursuits.
The park consists of five lots that can accommodate 650,000 square feet of development space on land that the U.S. Navy deeded to the university in 1964.
Though it was originally intended for academic purposes, the university got permission from the federal government in 1982 to use the land for industry-related research. The university formed an advisory group of faculty, staff, students and alumni to develop guidelines for how the park should be developed and what types of companies or institutes can set up shop there.
But the project was put on the back burner for years as the campus focused on more immediate development needs, said Nancy Kossan, director of real estate development for UCSD.
"Being a young university, much of the focus has been on the core campus," Kossan said.
The space is available to institutes and companies involved in areas such as life sciences, information technology and marine sciences. Those who move in to one of the five spaces must sign a 52-year lease and pay fair market value, Kossan said.
The Immunology Institute was the first to approach the university. Formed in 1989, the Institute's 250 employees and its corporate partner Kirin Pharma USA have been renting a 45,000-square-foot space off Science Center Drive on the Torrey Pines Mesa. Having outgrown that space, the partners also began leasing space in Pacific Beach at the former Mission Bay Hospital.
The Immunology Institute has been involved in identifying antibodies that can stimulate the immune system to fight off certain diseases, while Kirin Pharma USA -- a pharmaceutical subsidiary of the Japanese brewing company Kirin (Nasdaq: KNBWY) -- makes the antibodies.
The Immunology Institute wanted to move into the Research Park, in part, due to the prestige of the university and to be closer to researchers there and the medical campus, said Mitchell Kronenberg, the Institute's president and scientific director.
"Our long-term goal is to translate discoveries into diagnostics and therapeutics," Kronenberg said.
Kronenberg said the Immunology Institute would likely hire an additional 50 employees -- mostly scientists -- after moving into the new facility.
The $40 million building is being built by DPR of San Diego and was designed by the local firm Delawie, Wilkes, Rodrigues and Barker. Construction is expected to take 14 months.
The Science Research Park is the first of its kind in San Diego to be based on a merger of university and private industry pursuits, said Joe Panetta, president of the local industry group Biocom.
Panetta said the research park could speed up the process of taking academic research in areas such as stem cells and gene therapies and transferring to real-world uses.
"There are burgeoning areas that now look like they are 10 or 15 years away that could be accelerated," Panetta said.
While the park is geared to both for-profit and nonprofit groups, Panetta said he thinks having companies move in could help the university get its myriad research programs to market quicker.
"The concept is to build a bridge between the laboratory research done at UCSD and technology created by the commercial biotech industry," Panetta said. "There's a need to incubate that research and development to a point where it can be practically applied."