Wexford Science & Technology to Open Entrepreneurial Spaces in 850 PBC
850 PBC (Image Courtesy of Wexford Science + Technology)
Wexford Science & Technology, LLC, a national innovation district developer that partners exclusively with universities, academic medical centers, and research institutions, is launching the Wexford Innovation Labs at 850 PBC, the firm’s newest development located in the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.
Opening in mid-2022, the Wexford Innovation Labs will initially comprise 34,500 square feet of flexible lab, office, and lab support facilities specifically designed to meet the rigorous needs of growing life science companies. These flexible lab spaces are also paired with full-service amenities such as shared lab equipment; weekly networking and educational programming; and flexible terms.
“We are excited to bring our Innovation Labs concept to Phoenix,” said Doug Woodruff, Wexford’s senior vice president and west region executive. “These flexible spaces are an important point of engagement for fostering the growth and development of emerging companies and connecting them not only to the shared amenities and programming within 850 PBC, the talent and infrastructure of Arizona State University and the resources of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, but also across Wexford’s collective network of sixteen university-centric Knowledge Communities,” he continued.
Featuring labs of 250 to 1,000 square feet, the Innovation Labs will occupy the entire fifth floor of 850 PBC and are intentionally designed to accommodate a variety of uses including bioscience, medical device, clean tech, and engineering. To date, almost sixty percent of Innovation Labs spaces have been pre-leased by area start-ups.
“Having these lab and office spaces purpose-built for entrepreneurs, in the midst of the density of intellectual capital and discovery taking place on the PBC, puts Phoenix in a league with other leading bioscience clusters around the country,” said Dr. Steve Potts, CEO of Oncomyx; a company founded on breakthrough research conducted at ASU. “Having this much dedicated laboratory space and board rooms 10 minutes from an international airport that flies direct everywhere in the country is a major advantage to the location here, it makes it easy to combine in house labs and teams here with other team members or board members from elsewhere. It is close to a number of strong translational and clinical research groups, including Barrow Neurological Institute, Mayo Clinic, Dignity Health, ASU and U of A Medical campuses, Banner, and Phoenix Children’s Hospital.”
Wexford is partnering with the Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation (CEI), who will operate and program the Innovation Labs. CEI is a part of the Maricopa Community College District and has run a successful incubator program on the Gateway Community College campus for the past eight years.
“The Wexford Innovation Labs enable CEI to continue our mission of providing innovators and businesses of all sizes with exceptional entrepreneurial, educational, and workforce development resources. We are excited to expand our capabilities and help the entrepreneurial ecosystem to scale locally and continue to propel our region’s biomedical research for the years to come,” said Tom Schumann, executive director at the Center for Entrepreneurial Innovation.
850 PBC, located at 850 N. 5th Street, is the innovation and congregation hub of the thirty-acre Phoenix Biomedical Campus (PBC) located in Downtown Phoenix. The PBC is a collaboration between the City of Phoenix, the Arizona Board of Regents, and Arizona’s three public universities focused on advancing the bioscience ecosystem and improving population health across the Greater Phoenix region.
More than six million square feet, spanning seven unique buildings, has been constructed, or is planned for the Campus, that includes the highest concentration of research scientists and complementary research professionals in the region driving translational discovery. Phoenix ranked as the fifth strongest emerging life science market in the nation, according to a recent CBRE market report.
The largest commercially available lab building in the Greater Phoenix area, 850 PBC consists of seven levels of office and lab space, totaling 227,113 rentable square feet and is a partnership of Wexford Science & Technology, Arizona State University, and the City of Phoenix.
To learn more about the Wexford Innovation Labs or to schedule a tour please contact Kyle Jardine or visit 850PBC.com.