Bisnow's podcast, Make Yourself At Home, hears from members of the commercial real estate industry about how they are managing this new reality and gaining insight into their day-to-day approaches. You can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon Music.
On this episode, we sit down with Jerry Salama, principal at The Janus Property Co. His firm is developing the Manhattanville Factory District — a 1.1M SF mixed-use development in Harlem that runs from west 125th Street up to 128th Street.
The jewel in the crown, as Salama puts it, is the Taystee Building — a 350K SF property built for life sciences, commercial, manufacturing and educational tenants.
Initially, it was set to be an office building, but the company changed course after experiencing interest from companies seeking various types of lab space. It isn't leased up yet as the coronavirus pandemic has put deals on hold, but Salama is certain of the demand as the city’s nascent life sciences ecosystem grows.
“New York is second in the country in National Institute of Health grants, Columbia University is the highest producer of graduate degrees in biomedical, bio-engineering and biological sciences,” he said. “We have an enormous concentration of life sciences talent in New York and no available space for those users.”
