PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 22 CA-Alexandria-Gilead
-New Lease with Significant Life Science Company Further Solidifies Alexandria's Dominant Position in Key Life Science Cluster-
PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE: ARE), Landlord of Choice to the Life Science Industry(R), today announced that Gilead Sciences, Inc. has entered into a long-term lease for approximately 106,000 square feet, with a commitment for an additional approximately 4,000 square feet, representing the total office/laboratory space available at 199 East Blaine Street, Seattle, Washington. Gilead Sciences joins other prominent life science client tenants in Alexandria's growing, world-class Seattle life science cluster, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Washington and the highly acclaimed Accelerator Corp. Including the property at 199 East Blaine Street, Alexandria's Seattle life science cluster asset base consists of properties aggregating approximately 1,160,000 square feet.
199 East Blaine Street is a new, state-of-the-art, 3-story office/laboratory facility that will encompass a total of approximately 115,000 square feet, including approximately 5,000 square feet for retail. Alexandria expects the building to qualify for LEED Silver status. By pursuing state-of-the-art, sustainable, or "Green" building design, the Company seeks to assure functional and energy efficiency, systems integration, reliability and cost effectiveness in sustainable designs. The Company's innovative green building initiative, including the property at 199 East Blaine Street, incorporates high efficiency chillers and boilers, non-chemical water treatment systems, recycled materials, as well as many other environmentally protective features. In addition, Alexandria's sustainable operations initiative focuses on utilizing, among others, day lighting, spectrally selective glazing, motion sensors and dimming controls; these efficiencies serve to reduce HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) electricity consumption and decrease water use.
"We are extremely honored that Gilead Sciences has chosen to house its local research and development organization in our newest Seattle property. Alexandria is the pioneer and at the vanguard of the sustainability movement in our office/laboratory niche. Alexandria will also pursue the implementation of sustainable materials to achieve operational performance with green technologies at 199 East Blaine Street. Gilead's decision is a testament to our ability to attract world-class life science tenants to our clusters due to our proven track record and demonstrated ability to assemble a blend of quality life science real estate, operational efficiencies, environmentally responsible components, coupled with very high quality value-add services," stated Joel S. Marcus, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alexandria.
Alexandria recognized early on, the impact and importance of the Seattle market to the life science community in the Pacific Northwest, with its sophisticated talent pool, entrepreneurial spirit, established and growing capital base, and world-class scientific organizations. The Company also established its early impactful footprint and has continued to be the area's dominant life science cluster specialist. As a result, Alexandria has played a critical role in further advancing Seattle's reputation as a fertile environment for life science discovery and commercialization by leveraging the region's underlying core competencies and competitive advantages. In Seattle, Alexandria has provided innovative real estate and special services designed to inspire discovery, embrace scientific collaboration and generate interconnectivity among the region's diverse academic, medical, clinical and translational research institutions, as well as with other nationally and internationally renowned life science entities. Moreover, the Eastlake neighborhood, where the Company has built a significant cluster, is an ideal location for life science related institutions and commercial enterprises. The Eastlake neighborhood is a submarket of the broader Lake Union area, which also includes the widely-publicized South Lake Union neighborhood. Adjacent to one another, the two areas have become recognized as the northwest region's main hub of life science organizations, creating great synergy and accessibility between the commercial and academic communities. 199 East Blaine Street is located along the eastern shore of Lake Union and provides panoramic views of the Lake, Queen Anne Hill and downtown Seattle. It sits directly across the street from Alexandria's property at 1616 Eastlake Avenue East, which houses divisions of several of the aforementioned entities and is adjacent to or within a couple of blocks of others.
Peter M. Moglia, Alexandria's Senior Vice President-Seattle, noted, "Over the last five years in particular, we have witnessed strong growth in the Seattle market and especially in the Eastlake area, as numerous, leading private research institutions, including the Institute for Systems Biology, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Washington, the Seattle Children's Research Center and the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, have expanded their operations - creating solid demand for space. These institutions have also attracted significant funding from multiple sources, including the National Institutes of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition, the founding of Accelerator Corp. - a unique life science acceleration vehicle owned by a consortium of top-tier life science venture capitalists and Alexandria - in Seattle, has contributed in a very significant fashion to the growth of the area's commercial life science industry base. The establishment of a critical mass of research institutions and commercial enterprises and the extraordinary talent base contained within these organizations has also served to attract larger biotechnology companies, including Amgen, Inc. and Gilead Sciences, Inc. to establish research and development operations in Seattle. As a result, demand for office/laboratory space in Seattle has increased, helping to transform the city, and the Eastlake and South Lake Union submarket in particular, into one of the nation's top life science clusters. We expect this growth to continue going forward, further solidifying Seattle's position in the sector."
About Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Gilead Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and commercializes innovative therapeutics in areas of unmet medical need. The Company's mission is to advance the care of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases worldwide. Headquartered in Foster City, California, Gilead has operations in North America, Europe and Australia.
About LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
Alexandria's Unique Approach to Clustering
Alexandria's highly credible, 14-year track record as the creator of the life science niche demonstrates the Company's unique and proven approach of "clustering" key components of successful innovation including top-tier venture capitalists, world-renowned leaders in the scientific and technology communities, non-profit institutions and commercial entities into synergistic collaborations surrounding intellectual capital centers.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., Landlord of Choice to the Life Science Industry(R), is the largest owner and pre-eminent first-in-class international real estate investment trust focused principally on science-driven cluster formation through the ownership, operation, management, redevelopment, selective development and acquisition of properties containing technical environments, including office/laboratory space. Alexandria is the leading provider of high-quality environmentally sustainable real estate, technical infrastructure, services and capital to the broad and diverse life science industry. Client tenants include institutional (universities and independent not-for-profit institutions), pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, product, service and translational entities, as well as government agencies. Alexandria's operating platform is based on the principle of "clustering," with assets and operations located in key life science markets. As of June 30, 2008, Alexandria's asset base approximated 13.3 million rentable square feet consisting of 160 properties approximating 11.7 million rentable square feet (including spaces undergoing active redevelopment) and properties undergoing ground-up development approximating 1.6 million rentable square feet.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including earnings guidance, within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
SOURCE Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.
