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More Than Just Real Estate
Institutional developments reach beyond their walls to catalyze urban communities

Philadelphia: Poster Child

Philadelphia’s University City, so named for its proximity and connections to the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, has witnessed an evolution that roughly parallels its emergence as a leader in medical technologies, most recently cell and gene therapies.

“West Philadelphia,” says Grady, “is a good example where both residential and commercial communities are going through that transition.”

Wexford’s uCity Square is a 14-acre (5.6-hectare), 6.5-million-sq-ft. (600,000-sq.-m.) mixed-use community that provides laboratory, research and office amenities to 22 institutions in the cell and gene space. They include a new anchor tenant, New Jersey-based Amicus Therapeutics, which is leveraging a partnership with Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.

With 45,000 sq. ft. (4,180 sq. m.) of green space currently going in, Wexford and partners Ventas and University City Science Center also have broken ground on One uCity Square. In a show of abundant faith, the 400,000-sq.-ft. (37,160-sq.-m.) project, which is to include robust lab space, is going up speculatively. Wexford also is collaborating on a new academic tower for the Drexel School of Medicine, a nearby middle school and a 460-unit residential complex.

Read more here:
https://siteselection.com/issues/202...nhB4#gsc.tab=0