Today, Taconic Partners probably considers itself the luckiest developer on the face of the earth.

The New York-based life sciences real estate developer announced a new 200K SF lab project in Upper Manhattan on the site of famed Yankees ballplayer Lou Gehrig’s birthplace. Taconic and its partners on the project, Nuveen Real Estate and Flatiron Equities, can only hope leasing of the new development, expected to complete in 2025, is as steady and reliable as the Hall of Famer, whose consistency earned him the nickname the Iron Horse.

The new research space, dubbed Iron Horse Labs, will be located at 309 East 94th St., near Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell, Mount Sinai, Memorial Sloan Kettering, NYC Health + Hospitals and the Hospital for Special Surgery. The Class A lab space will include special double-height research space and multiple outdoor terraces.

Gehrig, who died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1941, is an inspirational symbol for biologists and researchers searching for cures to rare diseases. The building, which features triangular sun shades modeled after baseball pennants, will include a refurbished mural pointing out Gehrig’s birthplace.

The project will be designed, built and operated via Taconic’s wholly owned Elevate Research Properties subsidiary, which operates a 1.4M SF lab portfolio. A new Elevate project, the West End Labs near Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, landed a $300M refinancing last month.

Life sciences leasing activity in New York City reached a record high in 2022, according to CBRE, and new investments, including the city’s recent funding of a $20M biotech hub in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, bring the total number of active or in-development incubators to nine.