Mount Sinai to Open 165K SF Facility on Manhattan’s Far West Side

Mount Sinai signed a long-term lease for 165,000 square feet to house research and medical facilities at the property between West 54th to West 55th streets, Georgetown announced. 

The research facility will be utilized for research in genomics, proteomics, gene and cell editing, and novel disease treatments, among other focuses. The outpatient facilities will include branches of the hospital’s spine and breast clinics, an imaging center, and an ambulatory surgery facility.

To finance the construction of the facilities, Georgetown closed on $100 million in financing from Guggenheim Investments. It plans to complete the construction, in conjunction with Mount Sinai, by 2024. 

JLL’s Peter Riguardi and Steven Rotter worked with Georgetown, while Rob Martin and Barbara Winter, also of JLL, represented Mount Sinai in the deal. 

In addition, designer Neri Oxman signed a 36,000-square-foot lease for a research and design lab at the property. Oxman, a professor at MIT Media Lab, is known for her work combining architecture, design, engineering and computing. 

While Mount Sinai had been in the market for several years, the deal with Georgetown began and ended during the pandemic, said JLL’s Winter, which “is a testament to the human spirit,” she said. The deal is also a signal to the New York office market about the longevity of the life science sector. “It’s way beyond this particular transaction int the significance; it’s crucial to recognize how important New York is for life science,” Winter said.

Life sciences has been one of the few commercial real estate sectors to expand during the pandemic, as health care and medical research took center stage. In New York City, life sciences leasing in New York doubled throughout 2020, compared with the previous year, with more than 155,000 square feet leased, according to a report from CBRE. 

It can be difficult to find existing properties in the city that have the physical requirements necessary for life science, which include strong floor loads, high slab heights, basement and roof space, the ability for shafts to go through the building, and large power sources for emergency generators. Because the Eleventh Avenue property had previously been used for industrial purposes, primarily automotive repair, it had the necessary features. “It really gave us the framework that we needed to be able to build,” Winter said.

With the two new leases, the 280,000-square-foot property is 100 percent leased. Existing tenants include Pershing Square Capital Management and Dwight Capital. Georgetown acquired 787 11th Avenue in 2015 in partnership with Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, and it was redesigned by architect Rafael Viñoly.