Posted Jan 20, 2022, 7:35 PM
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Registered San Diegan
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 1,055
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Originally Posted by IrvineNative
An update on the Costa Verde redevelopment. Can anyone with a subscription tell me when the article says construction will begin?
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Leading biotech office builder Alexandria Real Estate has purchased the Costa Verde Center, a strip mall opposite Westfield UTC, to amplify its vision for a life science campus connected to the trolley line and its nearby properties.
The previous property owner, Jacksonville-based Regency Centers, said in a press release this week that it sold the 13.9-acre site — sandwiched between La Jolla Village Drive and Nobel Drive at 8560 Genesee Ave. — for $125 million. Dan Ryan, who is co-chief investment officer for Alexandria, confirmed the deal, which closed on Jan. 12.
“This is absolutely one of the best sites on the West Coast,” Ryan told the Union-Tribune. “It’ll go from being an old, dilapidated retail center to a vibrant, exciting community center and we’re really enthusiastic for the potential of the site.”
The Costa Verde Center, built in 1989, is a grocery-anchored, neighborhood shopping center that is best known for its McDonald’s, Chevron and Bristol Farms, although parts of the strip mall are now vacant ahead of a long-planned revitalization. The site is at the terminus of the all-new UC San Diego Blue Line, where an elevated platform connects to both Westfield UTC on the west and the Costa Verde site on the east.
Regency and Alexandria were, until recently, working together in a joint venture to overhaul the property as a transit-connected urban job center complemented by community shops, restaurants and a hotel. In November 2020, the partners secured City Council approval for a community plan amendment, allowing them to add 400,000 square feet of office and lab space and a 200-room hotel on top of the site’s already entitled 178,000 square feet of retail space.
That plan remains intact for the time being, although Alexandria is reviewing its options, Ryan said.
In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange, the prolific life science lab developer said it was planning to form a “mega campus” by tying Costa Verde’s office and lab offering to the firm’s other properties in the adjacent area.
“We recently completed the re-entitlement process and expect to develop 680,000 (square feet) of Class A office/laboratory space that will combine with our existing University District properties to form a mega campus aggregating 1.7 million (square feet), upon expiration of the existing in-place leases in 2022,” the company said in a Jan. 5 filing.
Pasadena-based Alexandria has $28.6 billion in assets and expects to acquire another $3 billion of real estate in 2022, according to regulatory filings. In San Diego, the life science developer oversees 8.4 million square feet of space spread across 103 properties, with its holdings concentrated in Torrey Pines, University City and Sorrento Mesa.
In the University City submarket, Alexandria owns a number of properties northwest of the mall, as well as a collection of in-development sites along Campus Pointe Drive. Ryan said the developer would use a shuttle system to transport workers to and from Costa Verde, providing easy access to the new trolley line.
The developer expects to break ground on the Costa Verde project in the second half of 2022 and complete construction in 30 months.
Alexandria recently disclosed in regulatory filings “historic” demand for space, reporting record leasing activity in 2021. The company leased 9.5 million square feet of space during the year. Its previous annual leasing record was 5 million square feet.
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