Wallace Whittier, senior real estate officer for University of California, San Francisco; Molly Maybrun, chief development officer of local developer Fifth Space; Caroline Skuncik, executive director of the city’s I-195 Redevelopment District in Providence, Rhode Island; and Kate Wittels, partner, HR&A Advisors, speaking at the 2025 ULI Fall Meeting.
(ULI Ron Nyren)
“Cities ... have relied on universities and health care systems to be the anchors of projects, but given the changes in the economy, [those institutions are] starting to feel some pressure, just like the rest of us,” said moderator Kate Wittels, partner, HR&A Advisors, during the start of the “Symbiosis under Strain: How Cities and Universities Are Adapting Growth in Uncertain Times” panel at the 2025 ULI Fall Meeting in San Francisco. “The recent volatility in federal policy and demographic changes are really testing that. Cities, developers, and universities are all rethinking the public/private partnership and how to share risk differently, how to benefit from value creation.”
The University of California, San Francisco’s New Life Sciences Building
Molly Maybrun, chief development officer of local developer Fifth Space, and Wallace Whittier, senior real estate officer for University of California San Francisco (UCSF), spoke about their collaboration to build a new proton therapy cancer center at Fifth Space’s Dogpatch Power Station, a multiphase master-planned mixed-use development on the waterfront at the southern edge of San Francisco’s Mission Bay. Dogpatch Power Station is entitled for 2,600 residential units; 1.6 million square feet (149,000 sq m) of commercial, life sciences, and retail space; a hotel; and seven acres (3 ha) of public open space.
After a multiyear search for the right site, the university purchased a parcel for its new life sciences and clinical building from Fifth Space. “From our perspective, the site was ideal,” Whittier said. “It’s a 10-minute walk from the main [UCSF] campus. It was an opportunity to own waterfront in fee simple, which is rare in San Francisco. It’s [on] bedrock . . . . Given the fact that [Fifth Space] had a master plan and a lot of adjacent laydown space, that was very valuable for us, given the extremely complicated nature of delivering the project over three or four years.” UCSF’s building broke ground in August. It is slated to house the proton therapy center in the basement, with clinical and incubator space above.
The project has an unusual capital structure: The California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank sold more than half a billion dollars in tax-exempt bonds to Goldman Sachs, which lent the money to the UC-created nonprofit Campus Facilities Improvement Association. The nonprofit subleases the site to Fifth Space, which serves as developer.
“To the degree that there was change during [the past two and a half years], it was trying to figure out, together, what is the right way to structure this deal?” Maybrun said. “What is the right way to finance this deal? Would UCSF build it? Would we build it on their behalf? What was our landlord-tenant relationship going to be? All of that is extremely complicated. We don’t print documents anymore, but if we did, I think there would be several three-inch binders of documents that we executed at the end of the deal.”
The complexity was well worth it, Maybrun said: “An institution like UCSF is a tenant with exceedingly high staying power and cultural currency in the city of San Francisco. Having that as our anchor was definitely very attractive to us. We don’t want to be in the position of collecting rent on an empty building, especially when what you’re building is like a whole new neighborhood of the city. We need life on the street, we need vibrancy, and UCSF brings all those things.”
UCSF is actively pursuing more projects in the city, Whittier said: “In the next five years, we’re delivering four major projects. Coming out of our experience at the Power Station, we’re looking at different ways that we can partner with developers—maybe a simplification of what turned out to be a very complicated project. We can use credits and leases in a different way to simplify that process, and maybe some simpler joint venture potential projects to deliver housing, for example.”
Providence, Rhode Island’s 195 District
Caroline Skuncik—executive director of the city’s I-195 Redevelopment District in Providence, Rhode Island—spoke about the quasi-public redevelopment authority’s work managing the sale, marketing, and mixed-use redevelopment of 26 acres (10.5 ha) of former highway land at the center of the city. “One of the key focuses of the redevelopment is to create an innovation district adjacent to Brown University’s medical school, about a mile away from the city’s main hospital district,” she said.
Brown serves as the main institutional anchor. “They’ve been a tremendous partner,” Skuncik said. However, there have been some curveballs. Initially, Brown planned to lease space for life sciences research in the district’s 150 Richmond Street building; the district planned to leverage that lease to obtain private investment, Skuncik said. “About a year and a half ago, they broke ground on a new 300,000 square-foot [28,000 sq m] life science building of their own, adjacent to our land,” she said. “They can do it cheaper on their own. We still got the benefit of having the ecosystem being built out but were left in this bind of, ‘how do you anchor another innovation building without our main institutional anchor being willing to take on that very large commitment?’ So, we’ve had to think creatively.”
In 2023, the state established the Rhode Island Life Science Hub to support the growth of the state’s life sciences sector. “The Secretary of Commerce, the Department of Health, and our redevelopment authority decided that we should pitch a project that leveraged the public investment in a new state health lab to get a developer interested to build private lab space.” The Rhode Island Department of Health State Laboratories committed to becoming the anchor tenant, bringing in an $81.7 million Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity Grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We asked Brown to agree to lease just one floor,” Skuncik said. “I was able to take the state commitment for 80,000 square feet [7,400 sq m] and Brown’s commitment for 30,000 square feet [2,800 sq m] and shop that around to developers.” Brown is subleasing its space in the building to Ocean State Labs, the state’s first commercial life sciences startup incubator. Developed by Ancora L&G, 150 Richmond Street had its ribbon-cutting ceremony in October.
