Organized Labor

By Paul Burton Contributing Writer

Construction of two new buildings at 16th Street and Illinois in Mission Bay is proceeding on schedule, with about 60 percent of the shell completed. The $110 million project broke ground in October 2006 and will be completed in September 2008. The all-union project is being developed by Shorenstein Properties LLC, with General Contractor Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company. Project Manager Mark Preston said that the exterior would be a granite and curtain wall combination, with the two six-story buildings mirror images of each other.

When completed, the two buildings, 409 and 499 Illinois Street, will house life science and biotech firms, with about 450,000 square feet of office or laboratory space on the 3.8-acre parcel along the waterfront of Mission Bay. The office buildings will have an underground parking garage for 625 vehicles, and a central plaza.

Preston said there were about 30 sub-contractors on the project designed by Dowler-Gruman Architects.

Tom McConnell, Vice President of leasing for Shorenstein, said that the 239,000-square-foot building at 409 Illinois had already been leased by FibroGen, a privately owned biotechnology company currently based in South San Francisco. The company plans to move its headquarters and research and development operations to the Mission Bay site in the fourth quarter of 2008. FibroGen will be the largest biotechnology company to move into Mission Bay since the city began to actively develop its biotech cluster in 2005, according to FibroGen. In late 2005, the city passed the Biotech Payroll Tax Exemption, a move championed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, which provided a key incentive to FibroGen to move to Mission Bay.

Mission Bay is a 303-acre mixed-use neighborhood located on the central bayshore of San Francisco, bounded by Townsend Street on the north, San Francisco Bay on the east, Mariposa Street on the south, and Interstate 280 on the west. It was created in 1998 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as a redevelopment project. Much of the land was railyard and warehouses owned by Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

When Southern Pacific was bought by Santa Fe Railroad, Santa Fe established a real estate arm, and that division was transferred to Catellus Development Corporation. Catellus subsequently sold or sub-contracted several parcels to other developers. In 1997, Catellus agreed to donate 29.3 acres to the University of California, and the City of San Francisco donated an additional 13.3 acres. The combined 43 acres will allow UCSF to expand its research capability.

The site leased to FibroGen is located two blocks from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Mission Bay teaching and research campus. The second building at 499 Illinois Street will total approximately 211,000 square feet, and will be available expansion for FibroGen or other tenants. FibroGen currently has 190 full-time personnel and develops drugs including oral therapies for anemia, drugs, to treat fibrotic diseases, progressive diabetic diseases, and pancreatic cancer.

The company's CEO, Thomas B. Neff, said at the time the lease was signed, "Our employees will also benefit from working in a custom designed state-of-the-art research facility located adjacent to the central transportation hub of the Bay Area." Shorenstein's McConnell called the project, "the pre-eminent site in Mission Bay." He said tenants like FibroGen would also benefit from proximity to the UCSF campus and its facilities, including conference rooms and equipment for life sciences. He said the project also included open space, was near public transit and fronted by two city parks.

Other amenities offered to UCSF faculty, students and, in some cases, the neighboring communities around the Mission Bay projects, included a Mission Bay Community Center-a four-story, 155,000 square foot building serving both the UCSF and neighboring communities for recreation and conferences; the Bakar Fitness and Recreation Center, Mission Bay Conference Center, and University Child Care Center at Mission Bay.

The Mission Bay redevelopment will also include 6,000 new homes, 28 percent of them affordable with subsidies generated by the project; six million square feet of office/life science/commercial space; a 43-acre, 2.65 million square foot UCSF research campus and hospital; 800,000 square feet of retail space; a 500-room hotel; a 500-student public school; fire and police station; and more than 50 acres of public open space, including parks along Mission Creek and the Bay.

Other tenants that will be part of the complex of biotech companies in Mission Bay include the California Institute of Quantitative Biology (QB3), a cooperative venture among UCSF, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and private industry, which is focused on biomedical research; The Gladstone Institute, a private research institution focused on cardiovascular disease, immunology, virology and neurological disease; and The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state's $3 billion stem cell research initiative. The mayor and the board of supervisors were instrumental in supporting the city's successful bid to provide a permanent home near Mission Bay for CIRM.

UCSF broke ground on its new campus in 1999, to be built in phases over the next 15 to 20 years. When completed, the campus will contain 20 buildings, employing over 9,000 scientists and technicians.