Rob Speyer, Marty Burger, Mary Ann Tighe Named To New NYC Life Sciences Real Estate Board
New York City has set up a new advisory panel of developers, brokers and investors to advise how the city's real estate can be leveraged to better serve and grow its nascent life sciences industry.
The New York City Economic Development Corp. has launched a Real Estate Life Sciences Advisory Board to work alongside an expanded Life Sciences Advisory Council, the NYCEDC said in a release. The 17-member real estate board is made up of a who's who of commercial real estate and biotech names, including developers like Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer, as well as Silverstein Properties CEO Marty Burger and Hines Senior Managing Director Tommy Craig.
JLL’s John Cahill, Newmark's Bill Harvey and CBRE’s Mary Ann Tighe are among those representing brokerage, and the CEO of lab builder and operator SmartLabs, Amit Chaudhuri, and the director of biotech coworking facility BioLabs @NYULangone Glennis Mehra, are also on the panel that will meet regularly with the advisory board, which has been expanded.
“The creation of a new real estate-focused board will ensure that we continue to provide the industry with the infrastructure and flexible space that companies at every stage need to thrive,” Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer said in a statement. “I look forward to working with both advisory groups to execute the mayor’s vision for growing a life sciences industry that has at its core a focus on creating economic opportunity for thousands of New Yorkers to find careers in this rapidly growing field.”
Specifically, Mayor Eric Adams wants to more than double lab space in Kips Bay and make it a “central hub” for life sciences, per the release. New York City has just short of 2M SF in lab inventory leased, per CBRE, and nearly 1M SF in the pipeline. Demand for space grew by 67% last year — but many argue the shortage of space for early career life sciences is holding the growth of the industry back from fully developing.
“Founders are creating platforms that are designed to stay lean and nimble. They’re not anticipating building out a large team, and they are still doing some basic development,” Mehra said at a Bisnow Life Sciences event earlier this year. “Being able to make sure that those companies can be accommodated in New York is crucial. We’re seeing it more and more — I think about a third of our companies fit that bill right now — and after three years, there’s nowhere for them to go.”
See below for a full list of the members on both panels.
The Mayor’s Life Sciences Advisory Council:
- Dr. Harold Varmus, Lewis Thomas University professor, Weill Cornell Medicine; senior associate member, NY Genome Center
- Claire Pomeroy, president and CEO, Lasker Foundation
- Dr. Mikael Dolsten, chief scientific officer and president, worldwide research, development and medical, Pfizer Inc.
- Tony Evnin, Ph.D.
- Dr. Linda P. Fried, Dean and DeLamar Professor, Mailman School of Public Health
- Kevin Gardner, Director of Structural Biology Initiative, CUNY Advanced Science Research Center
- Maria Gotsch, president and CEO, Partnership Fund for New York City
- David Hirsh, chairman, New York Structural Biology Center, professor, Columbia University
- Dr. Rick Lifton, president, The Rockefeller University
- Elizabeth McCombs, EVP and CTO, Becton, Dickinson and Co.
- Dr. Wayne J. Riley, president, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University & Chair, Board of Trustees, New York Academy of Medicine
- Euan Robertson, chief operating officer, Simons Foundation
- Carlo Rizzuto, partner, Versant Ventures
- Paul Sekhri, founder and CEO, Lyv Advisors LLC
- Susan L. Solomon, CEO and founder, New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute
- Mary Tanner, senior managing director, Evolution Life Science Partners
- Nancy Thornberry, chair, R&D and founding CEO, Kallyope
- R. Nolan Townsend, CEO, LEXEO Therapeutics
The Mayor’s Real Estate Life Sciences Advisory Board:
- Rob Speyer, CEO, Tishman Speyer
- Marty Burger, CEO, Silverstein Properties
- Tommy Craig, senior managing director, Hines
- Robert Green, chairman, Longfellow Real Estate Partners
- Anthony Giuliano, general manager, Life Sciences Construction, Lendlease
- Paul Pariser, CEO, Taconic Partners
- Thomas Ragno, founder and principal, King Street Properties
- Ariel Aber, managing director and NY regional head, investments, DivcoWest
- James Flynn, managing partner, Deerfield Management
- Steve Purpura, president, Beacon Life Science, Beacon Capital Partners
- Tim Schoen, CEO, BioMed Realty
- John Cahill, senior vice president, Jones Lang LaSalle
- Bill Harvey, director, Newmark
- Mary Ann Tighe, CEO, New York Tri-State Region, CBRE
- Amrit Chaudhuri, CEO, SmartLabs
- Johannes Fruehauf, founder and president, LabCentral; CEO, BioLabs; general partner and co-founder, Mission BioCapital
- Glennis Mehra, director, BioLabs @ NYU
CORRECTION, JULY 6, 6:15 P.M. ET: Paul Sekhri is the founder and CEO of Lyv Advisors LLC. An earlier version of this story misspelled his name.
