Manufacturing

Nationwide Children's Hospital is constructing a $100 million gene therapy manufacturing center in Columbus, Ohio. The 185,000-sf facility will enable Andelyn Biosciences, a for-profit subsidiary of Nationwide Children's, to supply pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with genetic material for use in research and clinical trials. Located in The Ohio State University's Innovation District, the leased structure will feature advanced cGMP environments for commercial-scale manufacturing.

The life sciences industry has become the great hope in real estate, as we face the most significant public health crisis in a century. While other industries have slowed and suffered as a result of sheltering in place and working from home, science facilities have remained operational and even have thrived in prime markets, as the industry continues to search for medical breakthroughs. The downturn in other industries has left buildings vacant. The life science market, on the other hand, continues to experience some of the lowest vacancy and highest employment rates. For life science organizations in the prime U.S. markets, there simply remains a shortage of available research-capable space. Enter the big pivot to science.

ApiJect will break ground in December of 2020 on the Gigafactory campus in Durham, N.C. Strategically sited in Research Triangle Park, the complex will be the world’s largest pharmaceutical fill-finish facility, offering an annual production capacity of three billion single-dose prefilled injectors. Funded by a federal loan of $590 million, the one million-sf project will provide BSL-2 manufacturing areas, cold and ultra-cold storage infrastructure, and an onsite needle and cannula factory.

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) began construction in October of 2020 on the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Inchinnan in the United Kingdom. Created in collaboration with the University of Strathclyde, GSK, and AstraZeneca, the £42 million facility will enable the development of new pharmaceutical production methods that will be proven at scale in a GMP environment.

Merck is constructing a $69 million facility for the production of high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredient (HPAPI) and antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) compounds. Representing an expansion of the company's existing campus near Madison, the 70,000-sf structure will feature containment environments specifically designed for the manufacture of substances with single-digit nanogram occupational exposure limits. The building will allow the large-scale production of increasingly potent compounds for the creation of innovative cancer therapeutics.

BMW Group opened the FIZ Projekthaus Nord complex in Munich in September of 2020. Representing an expansion of the company's existing R&D campus, the collaborative facility provides 1.6 billion square feet of space for engineering, research, collaboration, and administration. Comprising two office structures and a test-bench building, the integrated complex offers a dynamically connected work environment enabled by 20,000 servers and a data storage capacity of 90 petabytes.

California State University, Dominguez Hills completed construction in September of 2020 on the $71.5 million Science & Innovation Building in Carson. Designed by HGA Architects and Engineers with Research Facilities Design (RFD) as laboratory design consultant, the 87,000-sf facility provides classrooms, labs, and faculty offices to support programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

ABB is planning to construct a $30 million manufacturing center in San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy. The 172,200-sf facility will support the production of direct-current battery chargers for electric vehicles. Accelerating the company's growth and innovation in the electromobility sector, the sustainably designed project will leverage highly efficient building systems and rooftop photovoltaic arrays to achieve optimal energy performance and reduce carbon emissions.

Codiak BioSciences is constructing a 12,000-sf clinical manufacturing center in Lexington, Mass. The project includes the build-out of a leased lab and office building to create a GMP facility for the production of exosome therapeutics. Codiak is incorporating G-CON Manufacturing's PODs into the center to provide flexible cleanroom capacity. The prefabricated units offer exceptional scalability and mobility, and can be easily repurposed to meet future needs.

CRISPR Therapeutics signed a full-building lease in July of 2020 for a 263,500-sf facility in Boston's Seaport district. Breakthrough Properties is the developer for the project, which was designed by Payette to provide best-in-class laboratory environments for life science research. Both LEED Gold and Fitwel certification will be sought for the structure, which will offer multiple amenities including outdoor terraces and a fitness center.

The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult is planning to create the Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Braintree in the United Kingdom. Supported by £100 million in government funding, the project will enable mass production of a COVID-19 vaccine. An existing pharmaceutical plant has been purchased from Benchmark Holdings at a cost of £16 million. The structure's GMP infrastructure for antigen production, formulation, process development, and scale manufacturing will be repurposed and enhanced. Completion is expected in December of 2021.

The University of Sheffield completed construction in July of 2020 on the Royce Discovery Centre in the United Kingdom. Designed by Bond Bryan Architects, the flexible facility provides leading-edge laboratories and workshops for materials science research. Featuring advanced technologies for 3D additive manufacturing, digital manufacturing, and nanocharacterization, the building leverages sophisticated strategies for vibration and noise mitigation to protect sensitive instrumentation.

MilliporeSigma, a subsidiary of Merck, is planning to expand its existing campus in Buchs, Switzerland, with the construction of a $20 million laboratory for the company's reference materials business. Accommodating 40 employees, the three-story, 12,000-sf structure will provide analytical and R&D suites for the testing of pharmaceuticals, environmental materials, and food and beverage products.

Huawei Technologies is planning to construct a $1.3 billion R&D center in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Acting as the international headquarters for the company's optoelectronics business, the 538,000-sf complex will provide research, development, and manufacturing facilities for the creation of optical devices and modules. Catalyzing the growing innovation cluster in the region, the project will be built on a 500-acre brownfield site that Huawei acquired in 2018.

Siemens Mobility broke ground in July of 2020 on a £200 million rail innovation campus in Goole in the United Kingdom. Designed by Arup and AHR, the 860,000-sf complex will provide technology-rich facilities for train manufacturing and commissioning. Supporting the creation of intelligent and sustainable rail infrastructure, the campus will also accommodate the Rail Accelerator and Innovation Solutions Hub for Enterprise (RaisE) to enable collaborative research with academic and industry partners.