Bioscience deal nears

Forest City contract for Fitzsimons park could be OK'd in days

John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Forest City Enterprises is on the verge of inking a deal as the developer of a $2 billion bioscience park at Fitzsimons.

The deal is a crucial step that ultimately is expected to create 10,000 high-paying jobs in Aurora and put the former Army hospital on the map as a place for cutting edge medical research and treatment.

"We're getting close, very, very close," to signing the deal with Forest City, Jill Farnham, executive director of the Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority, said Tuesday.

"I think in the very near future, people will be speaking of Fitzsimons and the Mayo Clinic in the same breath."

The Forest City contract may be approved at a regularly scheduled redevelopment authority board meeting on Sept. 27 or at a special meeting.

Forest City is developing the former Stapleton International Airport, the largest infill development in the country. The company also has experience developing bioscience parks in places such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and next to the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore.

The 160-acre Fitzsimons Bioscience Campus is expected to house 3.5 million square feet of labs and research and development facilities over the next 25 years. It is by far the largest undertaking for the $7.8 billion Forest City, based in Cleveland.

Farnham said the company's connections in other parts of the country will help Fitzsimons bring tenants to the park.

The park also will have more space for fast-growing companies already at Fitzsimons.

Last year, GlobeImmune left Fitzsimons for Louisville because it needed to double its size and there was no place for it to grow.

Bioscience companies often grow out of smaller "incubator" space, said Marcia Mueller, a broker with the Frederick Ross Co.

Mueller is working with Forest City and two companies that are interested in moving into buildings at Fitzsimons that Forest City would construct.

One needs about 20,000 square feet and is moving from Arizona. The other is leasing about 12,000 square feet in the Denver area and would more than double in size at Fitzsimons, with plans to grow quickly into even more space.

"It's not unusual in this industry for a company to go from 5,000 square feet of incubator space and suddenly need to grow into 25,000 square feet," she said.

Dick Hinson, vice president of the Aurora Economic Development Council, said that Forest City "brings an incredible amount of real estate expertise and a great deal of capital to the table. That has always been an issue for the bioscience park."

To a certain extent, Forest City believes in the "if they build it, they will come," mantra, Michael Rosen, Forest City's senior vice president of new business development, said in a recent interview with the Rocky Mountain News.

But it takes time.

"When Forest City goes into a project like this, this is not a two-year, three-year, four-year project," Rosen said. "It's a 20-year plus project. . . . Longer term, demand will come from companies large and small, a range of companies - biotechs and medical device firms. Key will be contract research organizations and contract manufacturing organizations."

However, Farnham, of the Fitzsimons authority, cautioned that Forest City won't just be able to snap its fingers and all of a sudden the bioscience park will be in place, with its expected 10,000 high-paying jobs.

"I don't want to mislead anyone," Farnham said. "It's still a market-driven process."

Forest City bioscience parks at a glance

Name Description

Fitzsimons $2 billion, 3.5 million-square-foot development on 160 acres

University Park at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2.3 million square feet on 27 acres

Illinois Science + Technology Park (Skokie, Ill.) 2 million square feet on 22 acres

New East Baltimore Community $800 million, 1.1 million square feet

University of Pennsylvania Translational Research Laboratory 128,000-square-foot building

Note: Estimated size when completed; Source: Forest City Enterprises

rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207