Stanford University has bought 29 acres and nearly 550,000 square feet of older office/R&D property in Redwood City with the hope that the site will become a new biotech hub with links to Stanford faculty, researchers and students. Stanford did not release details of the purchase of the site, once part of the Excite @ Home campus, from a partnership that includes San Francisco’s TMG Partners. The sale price was also omitted from documents on file with the San Mateo County recorder’s office. It is the largest off-site acquisition of real estate by the university, perhaps ever, according to the school’s vice provost, and follows Stanford Hospital and Clinics’ decision earlier this year to buy four neighboring buildings for outpatient medical care. That project, now awaiting Redwood City review, greatly colored the university’s decision to buy the second tract, school executives say, because it opened possibilities for life-science-related commerce that would not otherwise have materialized.
