As the tech industry falls back in love with urban America, Joel Marcus, landlord to the booming biotechnology business, is perfectly positioned to strike it rich.
In Manhattan, overlooking the East River and sandwiched between New York University Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital, two gleaming 16-story towers act as beacons to the booming biotech sector.
Completed in 2010, the 310,000-square-foot Alexandria Center for Life Science is already 100% occupied. It contains a hub for Eli Lilly’s cancer business and a Pfizer PFE -1.69% lab dedicated to exploring leads generated by academic researchers. The second building, some 410,000 square feet of labs and office space, was finished in January and is already 60% full. Roche, the anchor tenant, says moving 250 clinical trial specialists there from Nutley, N.J. has resulted in 25 new collaborations with charities, biotechs and New York hospitals. There’s also an accelerator for startups, an enviro-friendly garden and fancy restaurants to feed all those scientists.