A joint venture between Mission Street and BentallGreenOak (BGO) has started work to deliver The Press, Foxton, a new 100,000 square feet life sciences facility in the Cambridge Southern Cluster
The joint venture is to transform a 7.8-acre site into a science and innovation campus via sensitive re-positioning of a former printing press combined with state of the art new-build. Uniquely the scheme provides direct rail links to Cambridge Central, Cambridge Biomedical Campus (from 2025) and King’s Cross.
Phase one will comprise the refurbishment of a former printing press, creating 16,000 square feet of fully-fitted lab and office space across two units. Due for completion in Q3 2023, it will be one of just a handful of life sciences schemes coming online this year. Phase two, which will see the delivery of a newly constructed 65,000 sq ft building, is due to complete in summer 2024.
According to market data tracked by Mission Street, there is demand for over one million square feet of lab space in Cambridge; only 10,000 is currently available.
The Mission Steet-BGO joint venture has a development pipeline of over one million square feet of lab and office space in key strategic locations. Today’s announcement follows news that the joint venture has acquired a 23-acre site to the east of Central Cambridge, where it plans to create an urban science and innovation district that will serve the region’s promising start-ups and scale-ups.
Artem Korolev, Founder and CEO of Mission Street, commented: “As part of our plans for The Press, we are bringing much-needed purpose-built life science space online quickly into market that is suffering from an acute shortage of stock. Britain’s life sciences sector is at an inflection point, and to fully realise the potential of our world-leading research and discovery, we must focus on providing the facilities that will enable our burgeoning R&D ecosystem to scale and commercialise.
“Our plans for the Press have been developed through extensive and overwhelmingly positive engagement with the local community and key stakeholders. We now look forward to delivering a design-led scheme that will be an attractive addition to the Cambridge ecosystem, and continuing to engage with some incredibly exciting occupiers in supporting their growth.”
