Real Deals: Onyx, stem cells, neuroscience, the Science Center at Oyster Point and more

The San Francisco Business Times' annual Real Estate Deals of the Year hit the streets Friday. Here are the life sciences-related real estate stories stories:

Best new R&D
UCSF stem cell research building
Near the base of Mount Sutro and behind the jam-packed medical towers of UCSF’s Parnassus Avenue campus, there was no hiding the complexity of designing and constructing a $123 million stem cell research building on a hillside.

There was the $20 million that needed to be shaved from the original conceptual design by architect Rafael Vinoly — without cutting net square footage. There was the complication of building the 68,500-square-foot structure just a few miles from the San Andreas Fault.
Arching over the entire project, too, was the timetable set by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which jumpstarted the project with $34.9 million of state bond money: 24 months to go from schematic design to work-ready occupancy.

Best new R&D (finalist)
Stanford stem cell research building
Stanford University is coming together over stem cells.
The university’s $225 million, 200,000-square-foot stem cell research center — the nation’s largest such facility — will house 550 researchers, ranging from those studying developmental biology and immunology to those concentrating on cancer and neuroscience.

Best R&D Sale/Lease
Chamberlin portfolio
BioMed Realty Trust bought Chamberlin Associates' high-profile Science Center at Oyster Point and Gateway Business Park in October — a potential 1.2 million square feet in the heart of the biotech industry, South San Francisco — for $290.3 million cash and an interest rate swap liability of $7.7 million.

Best R&D Sale/Lease (finalist)
Bayer U.S. Innovation Center
Salesforce.com is moving in, but the heart of San Francisco’s Mission Bay remains life sciences research and development.
In a building originally intended for Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug maker, landlord Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. has essentially filled it with up-and-coming Nektar Therapeutics Inc. and longtime international player Bayer.
The Bayer deal was sealed in May 2010 for 48,913 square feet in the east wing of the 210,000-square-foot structure.

Best Steal (finalist)
Onyx
Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. landed the grand slam of headquarters: a competitive price, room to grow and a spot among the more than two dozen other biotechs in South San Francisco. The 170-person cancer drug company moves in April.

Best Financial (finalist)
UCSF neuroscience building
The University of California San Francisco turned to the traditional lease-back deal to build its Neuroscience Building at Mission Bay, but it re-invented it for its own needs.

UCSF owned the land for the $200 million project, but lacked funding to build it. So it leased the land to a nonprofit group that will sublease it to Edgemoor Real Estate Services and McCarthy Cook & Co. That development team will construct the 237,000-square-foot research and lab facility and lease it back to UCSF.