Genentech is continuing its march on South San Francisco. The biotech behemoth -- which already occupies more than 3 million of the 7.6 million square feet of lab space in the Peninsula -- has snagged one of Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ new developments in South San Francisco. Originally designed as lab space, the 125,000-square-foot building at 681 Gateway Blvd. is being converted to office space for Genentech. Genentech, which signed a 780,000-square-foot deal with Slough Estates last year for land adjoining its existing campus, has also decided to lease several floors at 651 Gateway Blvd. The floors were formerly occupied by AT&T. Although Genentech is the largest biotech user expanding in the Bay Area, it’s certainly not the only one. In Novato, the Buck Institute is building out one of its final portions of shell space to house more scientific investigators. While the space isn’t huge -- just 11,000 square feet -- the impact to the institute is. The additional space will bump lab space at the facility to roughly 100,000 square feet and enable the institute to nearly double the number of primary investigators to 21 or 22. The focus will remain the same: Researching aging and age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, cancer, stroke and arthritis.
