The developer behind a proposed life-science campus is looking for a ten-year extension for the approved entitlements at 800-890 Dubuque Avenue in South San Francisco, San Mateo County. The request comes amid a fledgling market with record-high vacancies across the region. IQHQ is the project developer.
According to Newmark’s Bay Area Life Science Market Report, ground-up construction is currently at a seven-year low, with the remainder of this year expected to “serve as an early indicator of how the market may perform over the next several years…” Among the issues cited is the pullback in federal NIH funding, which is expected to reduce lab space demand across the region. The life science office vacancy rate reached 28% last quarter, and another two million square feet are contracted in the region’s pipeline.
800 Dubuque Avenue, image via Google Satellite
The approved would create three buildings rising 6, 9, and 10 floors high with a combined floor area of 857,000 square feet of office space. The complex would include a 4-story basement garage with capacity for 1,335 cars. Perkins+Will served as the project architect, with landscape architecture by Surfacedesign.
Prior to approval, IQHQ estimated that the construction would cost around $1.32 billion, with approximately $1 billion for construction costs and $237 million for soft costs. Construction is expected to last nearly four years from groundbreaking to completion, meaning that if the developer looks to pursue construction ten years from now, this project would be finished by 2039.
800 Dubuque Avenue facade elevation, illustration by Perkins+Will
According to the request, IQHQ is seeking a ten-year extension of the approved entitlements in exchange for the pre-payment of the Community Benefit Program Fee.
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This close to transit, directly connected to the center of SF, it makes sense to redevelop the site for housing. Well over 500 units can fit on this site, especially with the height precedent of 20 stories across the highway.
Micromobility in the area is pretty suckish, but not impossible. I’ve walked Dubuque Ave before and there are certainly worse areas to get around.
Why bother? Biotech is probably going to flee this country to Canada en masse due to our profoundly anti-science regime.
I wouldn’t be opposed to a state-wide law, maybe for ten years until we know more about the future of office space, that any office space of say 100,000 square feet must come with at least 20,000 feet of residential built with it, or an in lieu fee to build affordable housing.
Building new Class A office space these days just further pushes the older Class C office space closer towards demolition. Very inefficient sequence.