Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (AREE) recently celebrated the grand opening of its Alexandria Center® for Advanced Technologies (ACAT) in The Woodlands, Texas. The one-of-a-kind, amenity-rich, multi-tenant campus is located in the heart of the greater Houston life sciences cluster at 8800 Technology Forest Place.

The Center for Advanced Technologies campus marks the first purpose-built, cost-effective Class A laboratory infrastructure in The Woodlands. With this new opening, AREE also marks a historic milestone for the company — the development of a first-of-its-kind commercial life sciences ecosystem within this greater Houston emerging innovation hub.

Informed by Harvard Business Professor Michael E. Porter’s cluster theory, AREE’s proven cluster model combines the four critical drivers needed to create a thriving life sciences ecosystem:

• Location: The Woodlands is a world-class location that benefits from a tax-free jurisdiction, low crime rates, and a cost-of-living advantage relative to major cities.
• Innovation: The ACAT benefits from AREE’s best-in-class commercial Labspace® real estate, which is the culmination of a nearly three-decade track record of life sciences ecosystem building and cluster development.
• Talent: The greater Houston region is home to one of the fastest-growing STEM talent pools in the country.
• Capital: Led by Alexandria Venture Investments, the national Alexandria Seed Capital Platform™ will extend to The Woodlands, where the company will bring together leaders from across the life sciences community to catalyze early-stage investment in cutting-edge life sciences companies in the region.

“Our expansion into greater Houston — and The Woodlands, in particular — creates a unique opportunity to help bolster the ecosystem’s startup community,” said Jenna Foger, senior vice president and co-lead of science and technology at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments. “Through our leading strategic venture investment and seed capital platforms, we will engage local scientists and entrepreneurs to identify new technologies and companies for seed- and early-stage investment and introduce those that are most promising to our unparalleled network of biopharmaceutical industry experts and venture advisors to accelerate innovation in The Woodlands.”

The ACAT incorporates nearly 261,000 square feet of Class A office space in The Woodlands across five buildings. The first building was redeveloped into roughly 123,400 rentable square feet of LEED Gold Core & Shell and Fitwel-certified life sciences office space and is anchored by longtime Alexandria tenant Nurix Therapeutics.

Based in San Francisco, Nurix is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leading the field of protein modulation to treat cancer and other challenging diseases. With this expansion into Texas, the company can enhance its discovery and development efforts on a broad pipeline of proprietary and partnered programs in oncology and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases.

“We have had an outstanding strategic relationship with Alexandria since 2014 and approached them to support our expansion to Texas,” said Arthur T. Sands, MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Nurix. “The Woodlands offers us a business-friendly, entrepreneurial environment that is critical to our growth. Alexandria’s thoughtfully designed new campus provides us with state-of-the-art laboratory space and dynamic amenities that are key to helping us attract and retain top talent as we work to change the future of medicine through an exciting new modality of treating disease — targeted protein modulation.”

In addition to move-in-ready laboratory space and adjacent nontechnical space — as well as vital laboratory support services — the campus also features an unparalleled suite of amenities, including modern conference and event space; an expansive courtyard and event lawn; a wellness and fitness center; and on-site pickleball courts. What’s more, the ACAT places tenants within convenient proximity to leading academic medical centers and the George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

“We are honored to expand our strategic relationship with Nurix and welcome them as the anchor tenant at our world-class advanced technology campus in The Woodlands,” said Joel S. Marcus, executive chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments. “This purpose-built campus will be unmatched in the region in providing move-in-ready and cost-effective laboratories to drive forward novel therapeutic innovation in a safe work/play/live environment. Our efforts in The Woodlands are much like when we entered New York City, where commercial life science was very limited before we opened our flagship Alexandria Center for Life Science NYC in 2010. We are similarly committed to developing a commercial life science presence in The Woodlands.”

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