May 2, 2024, Emily Wishingrad, Washington, D.C.
Maryland’s life sciences market, one of the largest in the country, has a lot of things going for it — a hearty talent pipeline, federal research agencies and relatively cheap real estate prices.
One thing that it doesn’t have pinned down quite yet: the urban, mixed-use, flexible developments that are most attractive to today's tenants.
Local leaders and industry executives at Bisnow’s Mid-Atlantic Life Sciences and Biotech Summit last week said that for the area to keep up with its peer markets like Boston-Cambridge and San Diego, developers need to start thinking outside the traditional life sciences box.
“Wellness, walkability, transit, it's all of those things. It's just a little bit more difficult here because it's such a suburban market,” INTEC Group President and CEO Keith Switzer said at the event, held at Preserve Labs’ 1 Preserve Parkway in Rockville.
Urbanized science developments have been a priority for Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich. In his opening remarks, he said that attending international life sciences conferences over the years has given him insight into the next generation of developments.
“I heard this word, ‘collision spaces,’” Elrich said onstage. “There was an increasing interest in people building facilities where you could walk out of your building and you could go down and meet somebody from another building from another company — you could have lunch together, you could stay late and have dinner together, you can be in a place that was alive all the time around you — and made it more attractive to bring their employees there.”
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