February 16, 2022

Another biotech tenant signs at Dexter Yard

Photo by Turner Construction via EarthCam [enlarge]

Looking north, the north building is peeking out at left (on Dexter) behind the south building. Roy Street is in the foreground.

Dexter Yard topped out nearly a year ago at 700 Dexter Ave. N., and leasing activity there has been slowly gaining steam.The lab and office space totals some 500,000 square feet. BioMed Realty’s Mike Ruhl is listed as the leasing agent. (Update: Colliers had been brokering the space, but its David Abbott and Laura Ford just moved to CBRE; leasing materials haven’t yet been updated.)

The first big lease, which Broderick Group noted in its fourth quarter office report last month, was 120,000 square feet to Shape Therapeutics. That's a four-year-old local startup specializing in gene-editing via RNA technology.

This week, local biotech startup Outpace Bio filed plans for 18,914 square feet. SABArchitects is designing the space, which will be on the third floor of the north tower.

Outpace last year raised $30 million in Series A funding, according to GeekWire. It uses software to help create cell- and gene-based therapies. The company website states, “We use Rosetta, the most advanced protein design software in the world, to custom design new biological functions.” CEO Marc Lajoie came out of the U.W. He's also a founder of Lyell Immunopharma, of San Francisco, which is partnering with Outpace.

Shape is taking floors 12 through 15 (the top floor, a penthouse) in the south tower. ZGF is designing that space, with McKinstry in charge of the systems. No contractor is mentioned. GeekWire reported last year that Shape had raised $112 million in funding.

Meanwhile, tenant improvement plans have been filed for the seventh floors of the north and south towers, with about 43,000 square feet. No tenants are named. Likewise, the sixth floor of the south tower appears to be claimed, with 20,500 square feet.

And leasing materials indicate that the third floor of the south tower is also taken; that's about 21,000 square feet.

And the fifth floors, linked by a skybridge, also appear to be claimed; those total about 45,200 square feet.

So, if all those plans proceed, including Outpace and Shape, that means about 270,000 square feet is taken, representing over half the building.

Dexter Yard was designed by local shop SkB Architects, with Kendall/Heaton Associates of Houston as the architect of record. General contractor Turner Construction broke ground on the project in 2019. The city issued a temporary certificate of occupancy in December.

The once heavily polluted South Lake Union block was formerly home to American Linen Supply. BioMed acquired it in 2017 for over $16 million, then was itself acquired by Blackstone in 2020 for nearly $15 billion.

Colliers' leasing materials divide the entire project into about 220,000 square feet of potential lab space, with higher ceilings; and some 280,000 square feet of offices.

Newmark is leasing the roughly 20,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and commercial space on the bottom two levels.