SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - The sound of construction echoes through Mira Mesa Boulevard in Sorrento Valley all day, as a handful of new life science buildings are near completion.
It's the last phase of what industry experts call a post-pandemic construction "frenzy."
"It still is happening," says Daniel Maldonado, the Managing Director at Unispace Life Sciences. "Things that started a couple of years ago and are still under construction, are coming up to market."
By the end of 2025, more than a dozen large life sciences buildings and campuses will come online across San Diego County, according to research from JLL, a real estate company that specializes in those types of developments. Altogether, they will add more than 3.2 million square feet of lab and research space for the industry.
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"That's the cool thing about San Diego," says JLL's Chad Urie. "They're probably more poised for growth than many competing cities across the country."
San Diego's life science industry is already one of the largest in the nation. According to Biocom California, the region has nearly 2,000 life science-related companies. Those contribute 76,000 direct jobs and $56 billion of economic output for the county.
Adding another 3 million square feet of lab and office space will allow existing companies to expand and give new companies room to start.
"As they grow and they develop, they add different resources," explains Urie. "(They add) human resources, sales departments, and so they get larger and larger. So San Diego is built up to really grow that infrastructure for them."
Already, 43% of that lab space is pre-leased. Urie says the industry would prefer to see that number get closer to 60% before they all open. But it's trending in the right direction.
Meanwhile, a new wave of venture capital funding coming into the industry in San Diego is also fueling the industry's growth. JLL says more than $3.6 billion has already been invested in San Diego by VC firms this year. That's higher than any time in the past 10 years except in 2020 and 2021 when the pandemic led to unprecedented levels of investment in the industry.
"The money that was on the sidelines is definitely coming back to both the biotech and the real estate industry," says Maldonado.
San Diego also has the talent to meet companies' demands for employees, Urie says.
"UCSD is an economic engine that's hard to replace. We're graduating more STEM degrees out of that university than Berkeley and Stanford combined," says Urie. "I just think that it's going to take time. I think that as we move into 2025 we'll start to see the engine move again."
