Berkeley, California, is emerging as a hub for life sciences and technology firms, with new developments opening in the West Berkeley neighborhood. In June, ULI San Francisco hosted a walking tour through two campuses targeting life sciences research and development tenants at the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay: theLAB Berkeley and Berkeley Commons.
Two main drivers are behind the rise of life sciences in this traditionally working-class district. One is that many older industrial buildings are ripe for adaptive reuse. “A 1993 plan protected manufacturing, warehousing, and wholesale trade spaces in West Berkeley from being converted to other uses, to protect high-skilled jobs in those industries,” said Mark Rhoades, president and chief executive officer of Rhoades Planning Group, which helped facilitate the two projects. As a result, dotcom companies did not convert the neighborhood’s old industrial buildings into office space, as happened elsewhere in the Bay Area. “Biotech has a more robust and three-dimensional job structure,” Rhoads said. “A lot of the jobs don’t require advanced degrees. That’s part of the reason decision makers have started to embrace research and development in West Berkeley.”
Rhoads noted that theLAB Berkeley benefited from a general zoning change several years ago. “The office of economic development, planning, and development, and the city council, allowed warehousing and wholesale trade uses to be converted specifically to research and development uses,” he said.
The second main driver is the change in attitudes on college campuses toward startups. Rich Lyons, associate vice chancellor for the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), gave a presentation about the ecosystem of startups. “Modern research universities are adding a lot of innovation and entrepreneurship capacity, such as accelerators and incubators,” Lyons said. “At the end of the day, we have to ask the question: is this advancing the university’s mission of providing a long-term societal benefit? Twenty-five years ago, you would have heard a lot of the faculty at UC Berkeley saying, ‘We are a public research university, what is going on here?’ But the faculty culture has completely changed—they see how these facilities are advancing the university’s mission.”
Lyons cited research firm and financial data provider PitchBook’s annual rankings, which put UC Berkeley at the number one spot in the world among universities producing venture-funded startups by undergraduate alumni. “A lot of companies are coming out of UC Berkeley, and that has real estate implications,” he said. In 2022, the university opened the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub in the former Berkeley Art Museum, just south of the campus. The hub includes an incubator for life sciences-based startups—with shared research facilities and services available to industry users at commercial rates—while also funding UC Berkeley’s graduate student research internships with Bakar Labs. Lyons expects the university to create more science hubs over the next five to 10 years, with a climate sciences incubator already in the works. In addition, the university has eight affiliated venture capital funds supporting startup companies.
theLab Berkeley
Spearheaded by SteelWave and Walton Street Capital, theLAB Berkeley spreads across two blocks along the San Francisco Bay near the Berkeley Aquatic Park lagoon. The multiphase project involves rehabilitating four industrial structures and adding a new building to create a Class A life sciences campus. “The site’s proximity to the freeway and the UC Berkeley campus is a huge advantage,” said Steve Dunn, senior managing director at SteelWave. “Professors can run companies here and get back to campus easily and quickly.” The popular Fourth Street retail and dining district is also a short walk from the site.
The recently completed first phase on the east block includes the adaptive reuse of three vacant industrial buildings totaling 87,000 square feet (8,100 sq m) for offices, light manufacturing, and laboratories. A new parking structure serves the entire campus.
“To create lab space within large industrial buildings was a challenge,” said Benjamin Yu, managing director at SteelWave. Renovation involved removing internal walls and adding structural beams and elevators. “The existing buildings came with structural glass bricks in the concrete walls,” Yu added. “They were in pretty rough shape, but we wanted to keep that element because it’s an element we loved. As you walk around West Berkeley, you’ll see these glass bricks everywhere. They’re great for lab space because they let in light but also provide some privacy.” The project exposed bow-truss ceilings, added an indoor-outdoor mezzanine with views of the San Francisco skyline, and repurposed an existing tin shed as a fitness center. Another structure was mostly demolished; only its roof was retained to create a protected outdoor space for informal meetings, lectures, concerts, and other gatherings.
A second phase will add a new structure: a three-story, 159,000-square-foot (14,800 sq m) life sciences facility.
Berkeley Commons
The second stop on the tour, Berkeley Commons, features two Class A, three-story R&D buildings totaling 540,000 square feet (50,200 sq m), jointly developed by Lane Partners and LB2 and currently under construction on a two-block site just north of theLAB Berkeley. The site is bounded by Bancroft Street and Addison Streets on the north and south, railroad tracks to the east, and Bolivar Drive to the west. Both buildings offer large, flexible floor plans intended for research, innovation, laboratory, and office space.
“The buildings are very long, so they have lobbies on either end of Addison and Bancroft, and between the two buildings is an Ipe deck that we call the mews, with lobbies on either side as well,” said Nick Menchel, principal at Lane Partners. “Each building can function separately—they have their own cores, loading docks, freight elevators, restrooms, and garages. The public will have access to the mews, but our entitlements allow us to secure it with a gate, if a tenant wanted to lease the whole campus.”
The project includes extensive community benefits as well, including improvements to Aquatic Park and Bolivar Drive, and a new bike and pedestrian pathway connecting the park to the existing San Francisco Bay Trail Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge. To maintain views from the bridge of the UC Berkeley Campanile, the north building’s height will be slightly less than its counterpart.
“We worked with a lot of different stakeholders in the community to make this project happen,” Menchel said. “There will be a ceremonial platform for the Ohlone, the local Native American tribe, which will be open to the public.” A new medicinal garden will include an interpretative plaque describing the Ohlone’s history in the area. The developers also protected existing redwoods and oaks on the site.
The all-electric buildings are designed for net-zero energy core and shell operations, with rooftop solar panels as well as 40,000 square feet (3,700 sq m) of green roof. Amenities include a café, fitness area, and shuttle service to the nearby BART station. Structured parking along the railroad tracks on all three levels shields the occupied spaces from noise.
Every floor has outdoor spaces for occupants to use, with the third floor offering views of the San Francisco skyline, Treasure Island, and Mount Tam to the west. The extensive glazing consists of bird-friendly glass, Menchel said: “This is a migratory bird pathway, which is great—there is a lot of good bird watching from the terraces. You can see herons and egrets and pelicans dive bombing fish in the Aquatic Park lagoon.”
