November 1, 2019
$635 Million Life Science Campus Coming to NoMad
NoMad will be at the forefront of the city’s efforts to make New York a global leader in life-sciences. The Wall Street Journal and other sources are reporting that Deerfield Management Company in partnership with the Economic Development Corporation and the Industrial Development Agency, is creating a transformative $635 million life science on Park Avenue South between 25th and 26th Streets.
Deerfield purchased a 12-story structure at 345 Park Avenue for $345 million and is spending another $290 million to renovate the structure. In early 2021, the 300,000 square foot facility will be ready with laboratory space, research offices, and other cutting edge amenities. The center will include 200,000 square feet of wet labs.
The city has some of the greatest medical minds and research facilities in the world, but has lagged behind Boston and San Francisco as a biotech center. The state and city want to change that and are on a push to take advantage of the expertise at hospitals and universities in the area.
The Life Science campus here in NoMad is part of a 10-year, $500 million effort to establish the Big Apple as a top-tier biopharma mecca with 16,000 new life-science jobs and up to three million square feet of new space for life-sci companies and institutions, but the NoMad location will be unique in its central city location. In fact, one of NoMad’s greatest assets—its accessibility—was a key reason the NoMad site was chosen.
The life science building will serve as a mecca for every type of specialist in the healthcare industry, including leading scientists, entrepreneurs, and innovators from academia, allowing them to further develop cures and improvements to the management of deadly and debilitating ailments, among other unmet health concerns.
Now, instead of licensing innovative procedures and products to existing companies, local institutions, such as Columbia, Cornell, and Rockefeller universities as well as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will be able to incubate them into viable standalone businesses as institutions in other cities already do.
To make this happen requires more than scientific knowledge. MATTER, a Chicago-based nonprofit healthcare incubator, will provide resources to accelerate startup development and boost future collaboration between entrepreneurs and organizations, including corporate innovation groups, patient groups and market leaders. MATTER’s is the perfect candidate for the job ahead. MATTER has a proven track record of success in the industry, growing its business from 30 to more than 200 healthcare start-ups globally, collectively raising more than $1 billion in funding, and creating more than 3,700 jobs.
This is all very sensational for our neighborhood, city and state, but Deerfield hopes to further insure the success of the project by promising $30 million to a workforce-training fund. Additionally, Deerfield has pledged more than $2 billion in research and seed funding by 2030. This major commitment insures the success of this undertaking, in an area that often falls short of its goals, due to lack of funding, accessibility, and putting the right heads together in one room.
Developments like this are inspiring news for our area, because they will continue to make our neighborhood a magnet for technology, creativity and improved infrastructure. Not only will our neighborhood be even more vibrant, but we can take some local pride in being the place where new innovations are being made that will help people around the globe.