Forest City picked as developer

$2 billion contract for revamping former Army hospital site

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 28, 2006 at midnight

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The Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday inked a long-term agreement with Forest City to develop a $2 billion, 160-acre bioscience park at the former U.S. Army hospital base in Aurora.

The bioscience park is a crucial private player at Fitzsimons, which will include Children's Hospital, the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and probably the VA Hospital. Eventually it will create 10,000 high-paying jobs.

The long-awaited contract, which encompasses about 200 pages, spells out the 30-year agreement between the authority and Forest City Fitzsimons Inc.

Jill Farnham, executive director of the Fitzsimons authority, said buildout could take about 20 years.

Under the agreement, Forest City, also the developer of nearby Stapleton, can lease land from the authority for up to 125 years.

Stapleton does not buy the land directly from the authority, which will remain a partner with Forest City on future projects, Farnham said.

The agreement makes it difficult to place a dollar figure on the deal, although Forest City will have to pay the authority $250,000 in the first year to keep its options on the land, she said. In subsequent years, the cost of Forest City's annual option will rise slightly.

"Today is an important day," said Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer. "But it is just the beginning of where we are going. I see this as the first step."

Forest City has been a pioneer in bioscience, having teamed up with MIT in the mid-1980s when the field was in its infancy, said John Lehigh, chief operating officer of Forest City.

It has since launched similar parks in other cities such as Chicago and near Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

That has allowed the company to make connections across the country for potential bioscience tenants, he said.

In addition, Forest City has development expertise and access to financing unavailable to the authority, he said.

"It's not as easy as build it and they will come," Lehigh said. "I wish it were that simple. But at MIT, for example, we started with nothing and now 20 years later we have about 2.5 million square feet."

Dr. Woody Emlen, founder of Taligen Therapeutics Inc., already has incubator space at Fitzsimons but hopes to develop his company with the bioscience park.

"Right now, we only have four employees," said Emlen, whose company was founded in collaboration with a scientist at the health sciences center. Taligen was founded in March 2004 to develop and commercialize technology from the University of Colorado for the treatment of serious inflammatory diseases.

Companies such as Taligen will have the opportunity to stay at Fitzsimons as they grow, which was not always possible in the past.

"In the short-term history of Fitzsimons, a number of companies, once they reached a critical size, felt compelled to move outside of Fitzsimons to get more square footage," Emlen said. "If that pressure is removed, more companies could stay here as they grow. Let's say if in a few years we had 75 to 100 employees, we would have to look at all of our options and evaluate our situation. But ideally, we'd like to stay here."

Farnham, the executive director of the Fitzsimons authority, said she would like Forest City to build some speculative space that is not pre-leased.

"The nature of biotech companies is that they can grow very rapidly, and we want to be able to accommodate them when they do," Farnham said.

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