East River Science Park - First Avenue between E. 29th & E. 28th Streets -by Hillier

Talked about for a while, very important and exiting...


MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION PRESIDENT ANDREW M. ALPER UNVEIL PLANS TO DEVELOP COMMERCIAL BIOSCIENCE CENTER IN MANHATTAN

New Science Park to Attract Top Life Sciences Companies to New York City


Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Economic Development Corporation (EDC) President Andrew M. Alper today announced the proposed development of the East River Science Park, a bioscience research and development campus on a City-owned portion of the Bellevue Hospital Center. EDC issued a Request for Proposals to develop the site, which is located in the Kips Bay neighborhood on the northern portion of the Bellevue Hospital Center, just south of the New York University Medical Center between East 28th and 29th Streets and First Avenue and the FDR Drive. The project is a major component of the City’s effort to make it a center for the growing life sciences and biotech sectors, and is expected to be the flagship location for companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, research and medical device fields, creating an estimated 2,000 permanent jobs and 6,000 construction jobs over the next 10 years. Rockefeller University President Sir Paul Nurse, Memorial Sloan-Kettering President Harold Varmus, Health & Hospitals Corporation President Dr. Benjamin Chu, Bellevue Hospital Executive Director Carlos Perez, Henry Kravis and Russell Carson, Co-Chairmen of the New York City Investment Fund, a private civic investment fund committing up to $10 million toward the development of the center, joined the Mayor at Rockefeller University, one of the world’s leading medical research institutions and the nation’s first academic center dedicated solely to biomedical research.

“The East River Science Park will become a state-of-the-art scientific research and development campus that will provide expansion space for New York-based bioscience companies and help us attract new ones to the City,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We are committed to expanding this important industry’s presence here to take advantage of New York City’s tremendous scientific base and our world-class research institutions that offer commercial bioscience companies unparalleled opportunities for development and growth. One of the pillars of our economic development strategy is to diversify our economy by strengthening other critical sectors that will increase jobs and investment throughout the five boroughs. This project will help us achieve that goal by accelerating the development of the commercial bioscience industry in the City. Great science has always come out of New York City, and our scientists and companies will now have additional space to flourish so they can expand and increase our job base.”

“New York City offers considerable competitive advantages to the life sciences industry,” said EDC President Alper. “Our world-renowned medical and research centers, our large pool of scientists and healthcare workers, and the country’s most diverse clinical trial population all make New York City the perfect location for bioscience and pharmaceutical companies. The East River Science Park will provide these companies with much-needed space to expand while offering New York City the ability to capture our share of this rapidly growing industry.”

The East River Science Park is poised to become an attractive, cutting-edge facility that will capitalize on its prime location on the East River and its proximity to many prestigious healthcare institutions including Rockefeller, Beth Israel, Weill Cornell, Mount Sinai, Memorial Sloan Kettering and NYU. When completed, it will encompass about 4.5 acres with more than 870,000 square feet of scientific research and development, office and small-scale retail space. The campus will have at least 46,600 square feet of open space and take advantage of the East River waterfront. The campus does not include the former Bellevue Psychiatry Building, located at 492 First Avenue, which will be leased to NYU, which plans to renovate the building in 2006 for hospital and medical school related uses.

Development proposals for a mixed-use bioscience campus must include plans for a research lab and related office space that can accommodate multiple tenants of varying sizes including major pharmaceutical companies and/or contract research organizations, along with space for bioscience companies in the start-up and post-incubator phases. Plans for the campus would ideally include conference and meeting spaces for use by other tenants as well as for possible use by outside healthcare, bioscience and community organizations. In addition, the project offers a number of benefits to Bellevue Hospital, including additional revenue from the prospective developer, 400 dedicated parking spaces, access to facility space and updated maintenance areas and utility lines that would be replaced if they are incorporated into the East River Science Park.

The New York City Investment Fund, an affiliate of the Partnership for New York City that invests in businesses that fuel the local economy, will invest up to $10 million toward construction and financing of the East River Science Park. Capitalized at $100 million, the Fund has helped finance more than 60 projects that focus on new job creation, revitalization of distressed areas, minority-owned enterprises and innovative ideas that position New York at the forefront of growth sector industries. The Fund has already committed significant resources to encourage the growth of the bioscience industry by establishing a consortium that includes the City’s top 12 medical research institutions, as well as prominent venture capitalists, bankers and private equity investors.

“New York City is already a leading center of bioscience research; the East River Science Park will ensure that we become one of the nation’s foremost commercial bioscience industry clusters as well,” said Kravis, Co-Chairman of the Investment Fund. “This $10 million commitment marks the largest investment that our Fund has made. We hope it will help the City attract a top notch developer, private investors and world class tenants to bring this venture to completion very quickly.”

EDC has undertaken several initiatives to attract life science companies to New York City. Through its Life Science Industry Desk, EDC has intensified its domestic and international outreach efforts to pharmaceutical and bioscience companies and contract research organizations. EDC has met with more than 150 companies, including many of the top global pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia. In addition, the agency has developed a marketing campaign to emphasize the City’s existing bioscience cluster and to recruit companies to anchor several possible City bioscience developments.

New York City and the surrounding region are home to extraordinary academic medical research and health care assets. These include 15 top academic medical research institutions and medical centers, the most post-graduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the U.S., 40,000 licensed physicians and 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions. New York receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities. Finally, more than 50 bioscience companies and two biotech incubators are located in the City, with as many as 30 companies spun out of local research institutions each year.

Link

http://www.nycedc.com/RFP/ERSP/erspindex.htm

About time...
http://www.eekarchitects.com/indprjd...ter%20Planning

http://www.morelloart-design.com/arc...ay.asp?ArtID=6

This project is moving ahead soon. The city, from a inside source has sent out a RPF for a construction manager already, they want to move this foward

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Forensics DNA Biology Laboratory is under construction.

Its a cool white modern building with only about 15 storeys but allows the consolidation of three seperate existing laboratories into one 336,690 foot building. Architects are Perkins Eastman and Larsen Shein Ginsberg.

Biotech/science/R&D/medicine might be the single most important area for NYC to try to bolster. The intellectual capital, monies, and institutions are more than there. It jsut needs to come together. There is no reason for NYC not to be close to #1 with Cali and Mass. I really hope the city steps up like it should. And cut some damn taxes.

I hope so but cutting taxes is something they wont do for industries like Finance that are already here, so to assume they will do it for a industry that is not is just not good

I think this is it...

East River Biotech, three buildings
~13-15 floors
Architect: Hillier

http://www.hillier.com > projects > civic > Lower Manhattan Urban Design

This is the site yes, if it goes thru it will be a good start

The EDC has selected a developer, a California based company, justgot this info and wanted to pass along, official announcement soon

California REIT to develop city bioscience center
by Catherine Tymkiw
The city chose California real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. to develop the 870,000-square-foot East River Science Park near Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.

The first phase of development calls for building two laboratories and office towers totaling 542,000 square feet. The project, which has been in the works for three years, is slated to break ground in 2006.

The privately-financed $700 million East River Science Park project is expected to create more than 2,000 permanent jobs and 4,000 construction jobs over the next ten years. The New York City Investment Fund, the economic development arm of the Partnership for New York City, said it would invest $10 million in the project.

The new bioscience center will attract “both start-up firms and established bioscience companies to New York City,” Alexandria and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

One building will house 14 floors of laboratory and related office space, a conference center and a café. The second building, which will be located on the site of the obsolete Bellevue laundry building, will accommodate laboratory and office space, street-level retail space, a glass-enclosed Winter Garden and 43,000 square feet of publicly accessible open space.

The second phase of the project calls for building a 330,000-square-foot laboratory and office building on a parcel of land north of the site that is currently occupied by the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Alexandria, based in Pasadena, Calif., owns about 127 office and laboratory properties in nine states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The East River Science Park is its first New York project. Tenants in Alexandria’s portfolio of 8.2 million square feet include Quest Diagnostics, Merck & Co. and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES DEVELOPER TO BUILD LARGEST BIOTECH CAMPUS IN NEW YORK CITY
http://www.nyc.gov/portal/index.jsp?...&rc=1194&ndi=1

New Science Center to Attract Top Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Companies and Create Thousands of New Jobs

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced the selection of Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. to develop the East River Science Park into the largest commercial bioscience center in New York City. The new 870,000-square-foot-facility, which will be built on a City-controlled site on Bellevue’s campus that the City will lease to Alexandria, is expected to jumpstart the City’s commercial bioscience sector by attracting the world’s leading healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, and providing needed expansion space for the City’s existing companies. The privately-financed, $700 million project is expected to create more than 2,000 permanent jobs and 4,000 construction jobs over the next 10 years. The total economic impact of ongoing operations of the development project is expected to be more than $350 million a year. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development & Rebuilding Daniel L. Doctoroff, Economic Development Corporation (EDC) President Andrew M. Alper, Health & Hospitals Corporation Acting President Alan D. Aviles, Bellevue Hospital Executive Director Linda Curtis, Alexandria CEO Joel S. Marcus, and Kathryn Wylde, President & CEO of the Partnership for New York City, the City’s leading business group that committed up to $10 million toward the project through its New York City Investment Fund, also attended the event.

“Since the beginning of our Administration, a key component of our economic development strategy has been to diversify New York City’s economy and create new jobs,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The development of the East River Science Park will help us accomplish that goal by transforming New York City, already a leading center of bioscience research, into one of the nation’s primary commercial bioscience clusters as well. This state-of-the-art facility will allow us to take advantage of our enormous scientific base and world-class research institutions to attract both start-up firms and established bioscience companies to New York City.”

“Today is the culmination of a three year effort by our Administration to capitalize on the enormous life science assets we have in New York City and grow our bioscience industry,” said Deputy Mayor Doctoroff. “Building this world-class facility will help us attract top companies, create valuable jobs and make our City the bioscience capital of the world. I want to commend the staff at EDC, led by President Alper, for moving forward expeditiously with plans to develop the East River Science Park.”

“Despite our tremendous scientific assets, New York City has never captured its fair share of the commercial bioscience industry,” said EDC President Alper. “The development of the East River Science Park will help us reverse this trend by offering companies room to expand right here in the City. Developing a commercial biotech cluster will allow our institutions to forge stronger ties with the bioscience industry, help our academic institutions attract top talent and create many new high-paying jobs.”

The East River Science Park will capitalize on its prime East River location and its proximity to many prominent healthcare institutions such as Beth Israel, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai, New York University (NYU) Medical Center, Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell. EDC issued a Request for Proposals in November 2004 to develop the City-owned site, located in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood on the northern portion of the Bellevue Hospital Center, just south of NYU between East 28th and 29th Streets, and First Avenue and the FDR Drive.

In the project’s first phase, Alexandria will build two laboratories and office towers totaling 542,000 square feet of space. The first 242,000-square-foot building on the site’s southeast corner just north of Bellevue’s hospital tower will include 14 floors of laboratory and related office space, a conference center and café. The developer plans to start the second 300,000-square-foot building four months after construction of the first building begins. This second building will be located on the site of the obsolete Bellevue laundry building, and will include laboratory and office space for early-stage companies, additional office space for bioscience venture capital firms and street-level retail. The plan also calls for a glass-enclosed retail area with 43,000 square feet of publicly accessible open space, including a riverfront esplanade. The developer will build a parking garage below the two buildings to accommodate 520 parking spaces, with 400 reserved for Bellevue. Alexandria plans to break ground in 2006, with initial tenant occupancy of the first building in 2008 and the second building in 2009.

The project’s second phase calls for a 330,000-square-foot laboratory and office building located on a parcel of land north of the site. Construction of this building can only begin after the site is vacated by the City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Additional open space and 200 more parking spaces are also planned for this phase.

Alexandria is a leading real estate investment trust focused principally on the development and acquisition of properties with office and laboratory space. Alexandria focuses on the principle of “clustering,” with assets and operations strategically located in all major life science hubs. Alexandria’s clients consist of some of the world’s leading edge research and commercial entities, such as universities and not-for-profits, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life science product, service, biodefense research entities and government agencies. Alexandria owns and operates 127 properties comprising more than 8.2 million square feet of office and laboratory space.

“We are honored to be partnering with the City of New York and the other key stakeholders, and to be the vanguard for the creation of the first commercial life science cluster location within the heart of Manhattan,” said Alexandria CEO Joel S. Marcus. “Alexandria is proud to be the designated developer for this truly unique and innovative commercial life science destination. Together with the City, EDC and the New York healthcare community, we look forward to carrying out the vision of forming a bioscience community that will be equipped with all of the components to foster the great medical discoveries of the future.”

New York City’s initiative to grow its bioscience sector is led by EDC’s Client Services division, established by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002 to serve as a much-needed link between the City and the business community. So far, EDC’s bioscience group has met with more than 350 companies, including many of the top global pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia to encourage them to locate, expand and invest in New York City. In addition, the agency has developed a marketing campaign to emphasize the City’s existing bioscience assets and to recruit companies to anchor several possible bioscience developments in the City.

New York City and the surrounding region are home to extraordinary academic medical research and healthcare assets. These include 25 medical research institutions, more than 70 hospitals, 40,000 physicians, 128 Nobel Laureates, and more than $1.3 billion a year in research funding from the National Institutes of Health. New York is home to more than 90 bioscience companies and two biotech incubators, and more than 30 new biotechnology companies are launched in the City each year.

The New York City Investment Fund, the economic development arm of the Partnership for New York City, has committed $10 million in funding to support the East River Science Park. The Fund has worked closely with the Bloomberg Administration to encourage development of the City’s bioscience industry. It has organized a consortium of the City’s top academic medical research institutions, as well as prominent venture capitalists, bankers and private equity investors to support this project and other initiatives to generate jobs in the bioscience sector.

“Today’s announcement of Alexandria Real Estate Equities as the developer of the East River Science Park is the culmination of a highly competitive process that demonstrates that New York is finally emerging as a world center for commercial bioscience,” said Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City. “We look forward to working closely with the City and the developer to ensure the success of this project.”
MAYOR BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES DEVELOPER TO BUILD LARGEST BIOTECH CAMPUS IN NEW YORK CITY

New Science Center to Attract Top Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Companies and Create Thousands of New Jobs

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced the selection of Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. to develop the East River Science Park into the largest commercial bioscience center in New York City. The new 870,000-square-foot-facility, which will be built on a City-controlled site on Bellevue’s campus that the City will lease to Alexandria, is expected to jumpstart the City’s commercial bioscience sector by attracting the world’s leading healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, and providing needed expansion space for the City’s existing companies. The privately-financed, $700 million project is expected to create more than 2,000 permanent jobs and 4,000 construction jobs over the next 10 years. The total economic impact of ongoing operations of the development project is expected to be more than $350 million a year. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development & Rebuilding Daniel L. Doctoroff, Economic Development Corporation (EDC) President Andrew M. Alper, Health & Hospitals Corporation Acting President Alan D. Aviles, Bellevue Hospital Executive Director Linda Curtis, Alexandria CEO Joel S. Marcus, and Kathryn Wylde, President & CEO of the Partnership for New York City, the City’s leading business group that committed up to $10 million toward the project through its New York City Investment Fund, also attended the event.

“Since the beginning of our Administration, a key component of our economic development strategy has been to diversify New York City’s economy and create new jobs,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The development of the East River Science Park will help us accomplish that goal by transforming New York City, already a leading center of bioscience research, into one of the nation’s primary commercial bioscience clusters as well. This state-of-the-art facility will allow us to take advantage of our enormous scientific base and world-class research institutions to attract both start-up firms and established bioscience companies to New York City.”

“Today is the culmination of a three year effort by our Administration to capitalize on the enormous life science assets we have in New York City and grow our bioscience industry,” said Deputy Mayor Doctoroff. “Building this world-class facility will help us attract top companies, create valuable jobs and make our City the bioscience capital of the world. I want to commend the staff at EDC, led by President Alper, for moving forward expeditiously with plans to develop the East River Science Park.”

“Despite our tremendous scientific assets, New York City has never captured its fair share of the commercial bioscience industry,” said EDC President Alper. “The development of the East River Science Park will help us reverse this trend by offering companies room to expand right here in the City. Developing a commercial biotech cluster will allow our institutions to forge stronger ties with the bioscience industry, help our academic institutions attract top talent and create many new high-paying jobs.”

The East River Science Park will capitalize on its prime East River location and its proximity to many prominent healthcare institutions such as Beth Israel, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai, New York University (NYU) Medical Center, Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell. EDC issued a Request for Proposals in November 2004 to develop the City-owned site, located in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood on the northern portion of the Bellevue Hospital Center, just south of NYU between East 28th and 29th Streets, and First Avenue and the FDR Drive.

In the project’s first phase, Alexandria will build two laboratories and office towers totaling 542,000 square feet of space. The first 242,000-square-foot building on the site’s southeast corner just north of Bellevue’s hospital tower will include 14 floors of laboratory and related office space, a conference center and café. The developer plans to start the second 300,000-square-foot building four months after construction of the first building begins. This second building will be located on the site of the obsolete Bellevue laundry building, and will include laboratory and office space for early-stage companies, additional office space for bioscience venture capital firms and street-level retail. The plan also calls for a glass-enclosed retail area with 43,000 square feet of publicly accessible open space, including a riverfront esplanade. The developer will build a parking garage below the two buildings to accommodate 520 parking spaces, with 400 reserved for Bellevue. Alexandria plans to break ground in 2006, with initial tenant occupancy of the first building in 2008 and the second building in 2009.

The project’s second phase calls for a 330,000-square-foot laboratory and office building located on a parcel of land north of the site. Construction of this building can only begin after the site is vacated by the City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Additional open space and 200 more parking spaces are also planned for this phase.

Alexandria is a leading real estate investment trust focused principally on the development and acquisition of properties with office and laboratory space. Alexandria focuses on the principle of “clustering,” with assets and operations strategically located in all major life science hubs. Alexandria’s clients consist of some of the world’s leading edge research and commercial entities, such as universities and not-for-profits, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life science product, service, biodefense research entities and government agencies. Alexandria owns and operates 127 properties comprising more than 8.2 million square feet of office and laboratory space.

“We are honored to be partnering with the City of New York and the other key stakeholders, and to be the vanguard for the creation of the first commercial life science cluster location within the heart of Manhattan,” said Alexandria CEO Joel S. Marcus. “Alexandria is proud to be the designated developer for this truly unique and innovative commercial life science destination. Together with the City, EDC and the New York healthcare community, we look forward to carrying out the vision of forming a bioscience community that will be equipped with all of the components to foster the great medical discoveries of the future.”

New York City’s initiative to grow its bioscience sector is led by EDC’s Client Services division, established by Mayor Bloomberg in 2002 to serve as a much-needed link between the City and the business community. So far, EDC’s bioscience group has met with more than 350 companies, including many of the top global pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia to encourage them to locate, expand and invest in New York City. In addition, the agency has developed a marketing campaign to emphasize the City’s existing bioscience assets and to recruit companies to anchor several possible bioscience developments in the City.

New York City and the surrounding region are home to extraordinary academic medical research and healthcare assets. These include 25 medical research institutions, more than 70 hospitals, 40,000 physicians, 128 Nobel Laureates, and more than $1.3 billion a year in research funding from the National Institutes of Health. New York is home to more than 90 bioscience companies and two biotech incubators, and more than 30 new biotechnology companies are launched in the City each year.

The New York City Investment Fund, the economic development arm of the Partnership for New York City, has committed $10 million in funding to support the East River Science Park. The Fund has worked closely with the Bloomberg Administration to encourage development of the City’s bioscience industry. It has organized a consortium of the City’s top academic medical research institutions, as well as prominent venture capitalists, bankers and private equity investors to support this project and other initiatives to generate jobs in the bioscience sector.

“Today’s announcement of Alexandria Real Estate Equities as the developer of the East River Science Park is the culmination of a highly competitive process that demonstrates that New York is finally emerging as a world center for commercial bioscience,” said Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City. “We look forward to working closely with the City and the developer to ensure the success of this project.”

August 11, 2005

Proposed Science Park Hopes to Lure Biotech to New York

By THOMAS J. LUECK and JIM RUTENBERG

A California real estate company has agreed to build a $700 million complex of commercial health care laboratories on the campus of Bellevue Hospital Center, a venture that city officials hope will spur the growth of the biotechnology industry in New York.

The East River Science Park, as the complex would be named, would cover four and a half acres owned by the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation between 28th and 29th Streets and First Avenue and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Officials said it was being created to attract the kind of the small start-up companies that are routinely spun off from academic research projects at the city's universities and hospitals and to appeal to established biotechnology companies now clustered in places like Silicon Valley.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who announced the deal yesterday, said Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a real estate investment trust in Pasadena, Calif., that specializes in medical laboratories, had agreed to build the complex even before it had lined up commercial tenants.

Mr. Bloomberg said the city was already a leading center of bioscience research, and could become "one of the nation's primary bioscience clusters as well" with the new East Side complex.

Work on the first phase of the complex, about 540,000 square feet of laboratories, offices and conference space, is to begin in 2006, with occupancy in 2008, officials said. A second phase of the project, 300,000 square feet of laboratories and offices, is expected to begin after the first phase is complete, and only after a part of the site is vacated by the office of the city medical examiner.

Alexandria owns more than 100 commercial laboratories in nine states, and its tenants include Merck, Quest Diagnostics and other health care companies. Andrew P. Alper, president of the city's Economic Development Corporation, said Alexandria was selected from among five large developers that responded to a request for proposals issued in November.

Under the terms of the agreement, Alexandria is to pay the city about $3 million a year in rent for the Bellevue property, and about $1.7 million a year in other fees, known as payments in lieu of taxes.

"This is really a great vote of confidence in the city," Mr. Alper said. "We actually have a developer willing to build on spec, and to pay rent as well."

Joel S. Marcus, the chief executive of Alexandria, who appeared at a news conference at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center yesterday with Mr. Bloomberg and other city officials, said, "We know this market pretty darn well."

Mr. Marcus said his company would draw upon its broad contacts and experience in biotechnology and health care to attract tenants. He said the Manhattan location, with its proximity to several of the nation's most important academic laboratories, would make it easily marketable to commercial tenants.

The announcement came after decades of efforts by a succession of mayors and their economic development deputies to lure the kinds of medical research and development that have largely bypassed the city, despite its academic resources.

Mr. Alper said researchers at the city's teaching hospitals and university laboratories have been creating about 30 new start-up companies a year, but few have ended up in the city, setting up shop instead in less expensive places in New Jersey, California and elsewhere.

"We know that biotechs tend to cluster around great academic institutions, so why not New York?" said Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

Dr. Varmus added, "I hope this will change the city's image, and make people feel this is a place where biotech is and wants to be."

Mr. Marcus said living expenses and commercial rents in Manhattan, even if they are higher than elsewhere, would not deter biotechnology companies.

"Our experience in every major life science market in this country is that the cost of high-quality commercial entities is not the most critical aspect," he said. "It actually is location."

He said one reason the city had failed to keep pace with other centers of commercial biotechnology was the degree of caution among New York developers, and their insistence on having committed tenants before buildings go up.

In other areas where Alexandria has invested, "there is virtually no such thing as signing a tenant before you build," Mr. Marcus said. He said the company would approach its Manhattan project with the idea of building "a very flexible core and shell for a lab" that can be retrofitted for tenants' needs.

Mr. Bloomberg portrayed the project as an important part of efforts to diversify the city's economy and reduce reliance on Wall Street.

"Whether it's entertainment or finance or tourism or science, it is a very open world today and we cannot sit back and just say, 'Oh, we're New York, and people are going to come to us,' " the mayor said.

Mr. Bloomberg acknowledged that the city, at least for now, would be at a disadvantage when it came to attracting companies engaged in embryonic stem cell research. Some states, including Massachusetts and California, provide financing for such research, but New York does not.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...n/11bio_lg.jpg
A rendering of the East River Science Park, as viewed from the F.D.R. Drive. Occupancy is planned for 2008.http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gifhttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif

• Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

This will help the city make a push for some of those NJ based firms that started out in NYC at places like Columbia and ran out of room

It's about time NYC took back what it deserves. Long overdue.

Interesting, though, that this company has 8.2msf in 120 something buildings...this one development will be over 800K, or 10% of their current portfolio. I guess they have faith in the NYC market.