Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ plans for a $201M life sciences campus in the Woodlands, outside of Houston, offer more evidence of Houston’s growing importance as a life sciences center, ahead of the opening of the initial phases of the massive Helix Park project and other lab and biomanufacturing facilities.

The 12-acre, 325K SF campus, set to deliver in Q1 of 2023, per a story in Houston Business Journal, is indicative of a push in biotech for more Texas-based lab space.

Alexandria Chairman Joel Marcus told Bisnow, while discussing a real estate purchase in Austin, that many current tenants in other markets have been asking, unprompted, about moving to life sciences space in Texas markets.

The redeveloped campus, designed by Gensler and built by DPR Construction, will mostly be build-to-suit for life sciences tenants, with 30K SF built speculatively.

Alexandria initially purchased the parcel in December 2020 from Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, in partnership with San Francisco-based Nurix Therapeutics. Nurix will build 20K SF of lab space on a portion of the parcel, with Alexandria developing and managing the balance.