Biotech Facility Planned for Pasadena’s High-Tech Zone

After five years of planning, Pasadena’s effort to establish a high-tech industrial corridor finally appears to be taking off.

A major developer is planning a four-story, 91,000-square-foot laboratory building in the specially zoned area. The lab would be the first biotech facility on the 100 acres that the city has designated for high-tech businesses in hopes of attracting spinoffs from Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other academic research centers in the area.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., a publicly traded real estate investment trust that specializes in building and leasing laboratories, recently submitted its architectural plans to the city for design review and already has signed up at least one biotech tenant.

Alexandria Chief Executive Joel Marcus confirmed that the Pasadena-based company has submitted its plans but said he could not discuss any details. The proposed building is on the northwest corner of Raymond Avenue and Fillmore Street, just to the east of Huntington Memorial Hospital.

The city’s effort is part of a larger push to establish Greater Los Angeles as a magnet for biotech and information technology, similar to clusters in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“The whole L.A. region has the same problem,� said Eric Duyshart, Pasadena’s business development manager. “We have no identifiable cluster or real concentration of these technology companies. They are scattered throughout the L.A. Basin.

“There need to be two or three concentrations,� he said, “so that people can realize we are developing cutting-edge technology and we have the resources here in similar concentrations as the Silicon Valley or La Jolla.�

Despite Caltech’s small size--it has fewer than 2,000 students--it has long been one of the premiere research universities in the country. Caltech also manages JPL, which has a staff of 5,700.

But to attract and keep top-notch scientists, the university has to provide opportunities for researchers who want to pursue commercial development of their discoveries close to the university campus.

“The competition for good academics is brutal,� said Lawrence Gilbert, director of the school’s office of technology transfer. “It’s almost like professional sports.� It takes a mix of generous salaries and outside opportunities to stay competitive, he said.

In fact, Caltech and JPL scientists have founded more than 40 companies in the last 4 1/2 years. There were only two universities--the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the entire University of California system--whose scientists started more companies in 1998, according to a survey conducted by the Assn. of University Technology Managers Inc.

But in the past, many of the most successful of the Caltech spinoffs were launched far from Pasadena for a variety of reasons, including a lack of available lab space locally.

The city and the university set out to change that in 1994 with a general plan revision that targeted several areas for development, including one specifically for high-tech businesses. Although the development area is often described as a biotech corridor, the plan envisions bringing together a variety of emerging technologies.

In recent years, the city approved the necessary zoning changes, repaved a street and an alley, and installed a fiber-optic network in a loop through the city that links the area to Caltech and JPL. The site is a short walk from a proposed light-rail terminal.

Huntington Memorial Hospital already has a clinical laboratory in the designated area; however, the Alexandria building will be the corridor’s first commercial research facility, Duyshart said.

With most bureaucratic hurdles removed except for design review, the new laboratory building is expected to win quick approval. Construction should be completed by early 2001.