Longfellow Plans Office-To-Life Sciences Conversion As Demand Persists In Redwood City
Longfellow Real Estate Partners wants to add a 3.3M SF life sciences campus to Redwood City, submitting an application for a redevelopment project called Redwood Life: Evolve.
With the application, Longfellow intends to redevelop an 84-acre office park at Redwood Shores, replacing it with life sciences space as the booming sector continues to expand.
In addition to the life sciences space, the project plans include a 104-room hotel, a 46K SF amenity center, 1,400 SF in community space and four parks. The company declined to disclose the expected construction costs.
“Longfellow fundamentally believes in making long-term investments in our communities, which is exactly why we have been working with community stakeholders and neighbors for nearly two years to inform this proposal,” Longfellow Senior Director of Development Peter Fritz said in a release. “The resulting project application proposes a campus that will attract world-class life sciences companies while bringing extensive community and economic benefits to the region. We look forward to continuing to work with the community throughout this process.”
Longfellow acquired the property in 2019, its first such acquisition in the Bay Area. The company submitted a pre-application for the project in 2021, alongside PGIM Inc., as reported by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
The company would like to start the first phase of construction sometime in the next three to four years, though the timeline may evolve as the proposal makes its way through the approval process.
Longfellow is heavily invested in the Bay Area life sciences sector, previously acquiring the San Mateo Bay Center for $156M from Rubicon Point Partners.
Office to life sciences conversions are also on the rise, primarily due to the groundswell of demand for laboratory and research and development space combined with the need for investors to achieve speed to market that will allow them to capitalize on intense leasing demand.
