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A planned mixed-use life sciences campus in Rockville that includes multiple laboratory buildings, as well as luxury residences, will usher in a new era of growth for Maryland’s thriving biopharma ecosystem.
BXP, formerly known as Boston Properties, is developing the Shady Grove Innovation District, an amenity-rich campus that will bolster the continued growth of the industry in Maryland. The 31-acre site was acquired by BXP in 2021 and is currently planning the first phase of a development.
CJ Overly, Senior Project Manager, Development at BXP, said the plan calls for a layout about the size of nine city blocks. The campus will include new roads, a park, and nine laboratory buildings that provide a combined 1.3 million square feet of space. BXP is currently in the process of securing approvals for the first planned buildings, a 5-story, 150,000 square-foot laboratory building and a 315-unit apartment building. Construction on these could begin as early as the middle of 2024 and be completed in early 2026.
Future phases will be paced out based on market demands and are expected to take place over several years, Overly explained.
Overly noted that available space for expanding life sciences companies in Maryland has historically been very tight. Before BXP acquired the site for the Shady Grove Innovation District, the company analyzed the vacancy rate along the I-270 corridor and found it to be extremely low, an unhealthy level.
“The lack of space was a problem. Companies couldn’t grow and some were leaving the region,” Overly said. “The space provided by the Shady Grove Innovation District is an answer to that need.”
Maryland is a perfect candidate for new life sciences development, Overly explained. A combination of a thriving private biotechnology ecosystem, as well as the presence of academic and federal research institutions has made the state a key hub in the United States. In addition to those lynchpins, the price of real estate in Maryland is highly-attractive to companies. The price per square foot in Maryland is about half of what it would cost in the Boston/Cambridge area, Overly said.
“On a relative basis, it’s an absolute deal,” he said.
There are currently several existing buildings on the site that are decades old. They will be torn down and replaced with new construction that will better serve the future employers and residents of the planned development.
The master plan will include a centralized amenity center that BXP dubbed “Nexus,” which will include a fitness center, conferencing facilities, café and other amenities shared by future tenants. The campus will also include a landscaped pathway that will wind throughout the buildings. Along the walkway will be places for people to hold outdoor meetings, engage in recreation, or simply sit and enjoy the outside.
“It’s an important component of the design. We wanted to create opportunities that will allow people to get away from their desk and interact with peers from other companies, to foster the collaboration that comes from unexpected collisions,” he said. “It’s the live-work-play idea that is new to life sciences in our market.”
Alongside the affordable space, Overly pointed to the large pool of available talent in Maryland as an important selling point for the area. He also noted that in Maryland, there is an emphasis on education, which makes the state a great place for entrepreneurship. It’s also a great place to raise a family, he added.
“The talent and the underlying institutions, like Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland System, and the federal labs are critical. You need those kinds of anchor institutions to provide the ballast for the longer term growth in the market,” he said.
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