DURHAM, NC
Oxford Properties Group (“Oxford”), a leading global real estate investor, asset manager and business builder, today announced the final acquisition and completion of 78 TW Alexander in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. A 95,500 square foot biomanufacturing facility with expansion capabilities of up to 190,500 square feet, in Q4 2021 Oxford entered into a forward-purchase agreement with Davidson Craven, a North Carolina-based investor and developer, to acquire the asset upon core and shell completion. The transaction was arranged by CBRE | Raleigh. Oxford took ownership of the facility upon substantial completion in Q4 2022, with construction fully completed this February.
78 TW Alexander is centrally located off TW Alexander Drive in Research Triangle Park (“RTP”), immediately adjacent to Research Commons, Oxford’s 430,000 square foot, five-building office and life sciences campus, and highly proximate to 1733 TW Alexander, Oxford’s fully leased biomanufacturing asset. The property’s connectivity to Research Commons – whose occupants include global pharmaceutical manufacturer Grifols, and where Oxford intends to create additional research and development space – forms a uniquely comprehensive innovation campus in the heart of RTP. Able to service life sciences firms through all stages of their development on one complete site, the campus supports Oxford’s strategy to enable life sciences businesses across all stages of development and production.
“GMP facilities are unique, highly-technical assets and represent a segment of the life sciences market in which we have intentionally set out to become a market leader,” said Chad Remis, Executive Vice President, North America at Oxford Properties. “We continue to develop a robust expertise on the real estate needs of biomanufacturing and our footprint in this space is a key pillar of our investment strategy to build a global life sciences business of scale.”
The 78 TW property grows Oxford’s Research Triangle footprint to more than 700,000 square feet of end-to-end delivered life sciences space and expands Oxford’s existing North American cGMP portfolio to 1.5 million square feet with an additional development pipeline of over 1 million square feet across six markets. Oxford’s biomanufacturing customers include Resilience, a leading technology-focused biomanufacturing company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines, and CRISPR Therapeutics, a gene-editing platform developing therapies to treat hemoglobinopathies, cancer, diabetes and other diseases.
Providing immediately available production space, 78 TW Alexander is designed to meet the needs of the Research Triangle market, which is now the 4th biggest biotech hub in North America and a leader in biologics manufacturing. The building’s modern core and shell features 36’ clear heights to optimize infrastructure integration; seven loading docks for high volume shipping and receiving; robust power and water systems; and the ability to add a second floor for office or R&D uses. Highly flexible, the facility is designed to accommodate users of various requirements and size.
“The acquisition of 78 TW Alexander furthers our development of a life sciences innovation campus of significant scale, where companies can be incubated, extend research and develop life-saving therapeutics, and ultimately manufacture their work, all on the same site,” remarked Christie Chen, Director, Investments at Oxford Properties. “We will continue to deploy this model in strategic markets across North America, including Raleigh-Durham which has one of the highest concentrations of life science companies in the U.S.”
Research Triangle’s life sciences industry is actively expanding, proving it a particularly resilient pocket able to advance in a more challenging capital climate. Approximately 800 life sciences companies and 2,500 related service providers have presence in RTP today, and the region is ranked No. 3 in National Institutes of Health funding. The market also captured 36% more VC capital in 2022 vs 2021, pointing to the potential for company formation and growth in 2023.
Oxford has invested in the life sciences industry since 2017. It has built substantial expertise in the sector while deploying capital through a variety of equity and credit investments as well as cultivating a significant development pipeline. Since the start of 2021 alone, Oxford has invested over US$3 billion in global life sciences and has identified a further US$5 billion of follow-on development opportunities. Oxford’s life sciences business now operates across 10 leading North American life sciences markets and in key European markets through holdings in Cambridge, London and Paris.
