It’s crunch time for San Francisco’s effort to become the home for the state’s new stem cell research center -- and now the city is behind and scrambling. Unlike rivals San Diego and Sacramento, San Francisco can’t seem to get a competitive bid together -- the main problem being an inability to find a landlord willing to come up with 15,000 square feet of free office space. One would think that the stars ought to be aligned in San Francisco’s favor. After all: -- Many of the voter-approved stem cell initiative’s biggest backers live in the Bay Area -- including its author, Peninsula developer Robert Klein, who ponied up $3.1 million to help pass the measure. -- Klein also chairs the citizens oversight committee for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine that will oversee the stem cell research. The vice chair is scientist and biotech mogul Ed Penhoet, president of the San Francisco-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. -- Zach Hall, the neuroscientist who helped oversee UCSF’s expansion to Mission Bay, is expected to be the institute’s new interim president. Much of the stem cell research done to date has come out of UCSF, and the university is counting on its new campus at Mission Bay to be a big draw for biotech research. -- And San Francisco has no shortage of office space right now -- the city’s vacancy rate is 17 percent. Whatever advantage San Francisco had, however, is in danger of being eliminated by San Diego and Sacramento, which are offering incentives such as free office rent and even free hotel rooms for the institute’s conferences.
