Daily Business Report-Feb. 13, 2015

 Artist’s rendering of the i3 campus for the life sciences industry.

BioMed Realty Trust Breaks Ground On

Campus to Serve Life Sciences Industry

BioMed Realty Trust Inc. broke ground Thursday on a new 316,000-square-foot laboratory and office campus designed to meet the real estate needs of San Diego’s life sciences industry. i3 is centered in the University Town Centre area of the city. The project is expected to be completed in mid-2016.

The i3 campus will bring together the key elements needed by life science companies and their employees. For life science companies to thrive, grow and conduct great research they require an environment with flexible design, great amenities and easy access to transportation.

Besides a 16,000-square-foot amenities area, the campus will have three 100,000-square-foot, fully customizable buildings with adaptable lab zones enabling companies to more effectively create the environments of innovation unique to their science. The company said the campus will create an atmosphere of connectivity, innovation and collaboration with outdoor conferencing and auditorium, an open courtyard programmed with activities for employees, modern fitness center and a market and cafe.

“San Diego’s life science industry is bursting at the seams with tremendous innovation, and i3 will become the destination for life science in San Diego,” said Alan Gold, chairman and CEO of BioMed Realty.

BioMed Realty estimates life science real estate in San Diego to be approximately 94 percent occupied, leaving fewer options for new companies to start and existing companies to grow and expand.

Another key element of the i3 design is that it is expected to achieve LEED Platinum certification. The project is expected to include many sustainable features such as one of the first green roofs in San Diego, onsite bio-filtration zones, use of recycled water for irrigation and cooling towers, fuel cell energy generation, operable windows, and a net-zero amenity area.

 

New San Diego Comic Art Gallery

To Open at Liberty Station in Point Loma

IDW Publishing announced plans to move its headquarters into the NTC Arts & Culture District in Liberty Station and to open a new San Diego Comic Art Gallery in the district.

The new offices and gallery will be located in two renovated former barracks buildings that were among the first buildings constructed in 1923 for Naval Training Center San Diego. IDW Publishing will become the largest tenant in the arts district with offices of 18,300 square feet.

The grand opening is scheduled for June 1.

The San Diego Comic Art Gallery will located within the IDW offices, designed to educate and engage visitors with the sequential comic book and graphic arts.

“The SDCAG will create a permanent home in San Diego as a showcase for this celebrated art form, already associated with San Diego, thanks to Comic-Con International,” the company said in its announcement. “With a retail space, a gallery of original art from comics and animation, and actual working artists on the premises, the SDCAG is an entirely new kind of venture. Through events, author and artist appearances, art installations and celebrations, the SDCAG will become a destination to worldwide fans of the medium, and cement San Diego’s status as a capital of the comic arts.”

The first installation will be an extensive showcase of the work of Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and local San Diego resident.  Harry L. Katz, former head Curator in the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress, has been named the curator of SDCAG.

“IDW joins more than 80 artists, dance companies, museums, galleries, music groups and art schools in San Diego’s largest cultural district outside of Balboa Park,” said NTC Foundation Executive Director Alan Ziter. “Their new San Diego Comic Art Gallery will be a great addition to the numerous art galleries and museums already at NTC and we look forward to the creative collaborations ahead.”

The design and build out of IDW’s move into the historic buildings is being made possible with the assistance of San Diego area businesses Good & Roberts LLC and obrARCHITECTURE inc.

Port to Hold Public Outreach Meeting

On Lane Field South Hotel Development

The Port of San Diego will hold a public outreach meeting on Feb. 19 on a hotel development planned for the south side of Lane Field, located at the corner of North Harbor Drive and West Broadway in Downtown. The meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Training Room of the port’s administration building, 3165 Pacific Highway, San Diego.

The proposed hotel is being developed by LPP Lane Field LLC, the managing partner of the group developing the Lane Field North Hotel, currently under construction.

At the meeting, the public will have the opportunity to view and provide comments on the preliminary concept for the Lane Field South hotel project. The proposed project consists of a higher-end, 400-room hotel that would include meeting space, retail stores and restaurants and a minimum of 686 parking spaces, of which 271 must be available for the public. The developers will also complete a 55-foot long setback along West Broadway between North Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway.

LPP was awarded a one-year option agreement to develop the Lane Field South Hotel project at the Dec. 9, 2014 Board of Port Commissioners meeting

ResMed Acquires Tennesee’s Jaysec

San Diego-based ResMed announced it has acquired Jaysec, a provider of Internet-based software for the home medical equipment industry. Financial terms were not disclosed. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., Jaysec’s products help home medical equipment providers resupply their patients and communicate with referring medical providers.

“Jaysec’s products streamline key home medical equipment business practices such as resupply, allowing home medical equipment providers to focus on delivering quality care for their patients,” said Raj Sodhi, president of ResMed’s Healthcare Informatics Global Business Unit. “Acquiring Jaysec furthers our commitment to helping home medical equipments drive business efficiencies while delivering positive patient outcomes.”

Jaysec offers an automated resupply solution — GoJaysec — that uses interactive voice, text and secured email communications to direct patients to a self-serve portal for easy authorization of home medical equipment resupplies, including CPAP masks and accessories. This targeted, periodic communication automates the resupply process.

Jaysec was founded in 2002 and currently serves nearly 100 home medical equipment customers in the U.S., including most national accounts as well as a smaller number of home health providers. The Jaysec products will now be offered by ResMed.

UC San Diego’d Rady School of Management

Launches Center for Business Analytics

The Rady School of Management at UC San Diego today announced the launch of its Center for Business Analytics, which will serve as a platform for research and innovation in big data analysis for private businesses and public agencies.

The center’s first corporate sponsor is Urban Insights Associates Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Cubic Transportation Systems, a business segment of Cubic Corp.

“The partnership and generous support Urban Insights is providing to the Rady School’s Center for Business Analytics will enable the advancement of innovative research and increase collaboration with businesses and public agencies,” said Rady School’s Professor of Marketing Karsten Hansen and Associate Professor of Marketing On Amir in a joint statement. “Data analytics is revolutionizing the business world and the Center for Business Analytics will help prepare Rady’s graduate students to become leaders in this sector.”

SpoonRocket Expands Service to San Diego and Seattle

SpoonRocket, the San Francisco on-demand meal start-up that delivers food fast, is expanding its service to two college campuses — UC San Diego and the University of Washington in Seattle. These are the first markets outside of the Bay Area to offer SpoonRocket’s  fresh meals, delivered curbside.

“This is an exciting time for SpoonRocket, as we expand our presence in new markets where lightning-speed meal delivery is becoming a must,” said Steven Hsiao, SpoonRocket CEO and founder. “People have a growing appetite for convenience when it comes to their meals, and we’re ready to meet that demand by bringing good food, fast to more places.”

SpoonRocket will launch service in San Diego and Seattle during lunch hours from 11:30 am to 1 pm. Meals range from $8 to $12. Both markets will kick off with special lunch offers, including a one-day, $1 Hype Meal sandwich event in Seattle and San Diego’s “First Order Free” program through Feb. 20. Customers within SpoonRocket service areas can participate in these offers by placing their order online or by downloading the mobile app.

Seattle and San Diego are the first new service regions outside of the Bay Area, with plans to expand to other markets later this year.

Mesa College Unveils $40.5 Million

Social-Behavioral Science Building

A $40.5 million, three-story classroom building has opened at San Diego Mesa College for social and behavioral science courses. The nearly 74,000-square-foot structure, funded by the San Diego Community College District’s $1.6 billion in construction bonds, is one of several new facilities to open in the last several years at Mesa, City and Miramar colleges.

“It is inspiring to watch the transformation of Mesa College. As they have with the opening of each new building, the students have taken over the Social and Behavioral Sciences Building and made it their own,” said college President Pamela Luster.

“To watch the interaction between faculty and students, and to see the true educational benefits that these facilities bring, underscores the return on investment that the voters of San Diego have made to education and to Mesa College,” she said.

In addition to classrooms, the building provides laboratory space for the psychology, anthropology and geography programs.

The two bonds, one approved by voters in 2002 and the other in 2006, have also provided the Clairemont Mesa campus with a health facility, a 45,000-square-foot humanities building and a 206,000-square-foot math and science complex. A new commons and an exercise science building are under construction.

— City News Service

Top Admiral Hands Out Awards

In ‘Navy’s Hometown’ San Diego

The Navy’s second in command and the first African-American woman to become a four-star admiral told local defense leaders that San Diego has emerged as the Navy’s hometown.

“San Diego has become the hometown of the Navy,” said Adm. Michelle Howard, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. “Our relationship with San Diego has become familiar and comfortable.”

Howard spoke at the 8th annual achievement awards presented by the San Diego Military Advisory Council, a nonprofit that supports the common interests of the military and the defense community.

She called the SDMAC organization a “shining example” of how San Diego welcomes the Navy. “What a special place this is, and what a special relationship we have,” she said.

During her welcoming speech before the awards ceremony at Naval Base Pt. Loma, Howard detailed how the relationship has grown over the more than a century of time since a coaling station was first established in San Diego.

The Colorado native graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1982 and went on to command the USS Rushmore, becoming the first African-American woman to command a Navy ship.

Howard helped hand out the awards, which recognize civilian and military individuals, companies and organizations that have made extraordinary contributions to the welfare of San Diego’s military community in the preceding year.

The six award winners were:

• Peter F. Hedley received the first Rear Adm. Bruce Boland Award for Lifetime Achievement. Hedley, who retired as a captain after a 27-year career, went on to become a successful businessman while also devoting himself to service in the San Diego community.

• The crew of the USS Essex for volunteering at educational and athletic events at two San Diego elementary schools, helping clean up beaches and parks, and supporting local charities.

• Lt. j.g. Janet Von Eiff who since 2011 has volunteered her off-duty time as the assistant coach of the women’s varsity basketball team at Montgomery High School, creating a positive role model for young women.

• The Marine Corps for support in combating the May 2014 San Diego wildfires.

• The San Diego Chargers for their annual “Salute to the Military” and “Salute to Service” games, as well as providing tickets to active-duty military and their families and cash donations to veterans charities.

• The Coronado Rotary Club for  its 2014 Low Tide Ride and Stride event that raised more than $72,000 for a number of veterans charities.

— Times of San Diego

Personnel Announcements

Corey Lichtman Reappointed to Chiropractic Board

Corey Lichtman, 38, of San Diego, has been reappointed to the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners by Gov. Jerry Brown. He has served since 2014.

Lichtman has been team chiropractor and medical coordinator for the San Diego Sockers since 2009 and owner and president of Lichtman Chiropractic Inc since 2006. He was a chiropractor at Corey Lichtman DC from 2005 to 2006 and associate chiropractor at Reiley Chiropractic Inc. from 2003 to 2005. Lichtman earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree from the Southern California University of Health Sciences. The position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Lichtman is registered without party preference.