Daily Business Report: Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023
San Diego’s life sciences real estate market normalizes
in Q4 after robust growth in previous two years
New supply of life sciences real estate outpaced demand in many top U.S. life sciences markets, including San Diego, in the fourth quarter, boosting the sector’s vacancy rate back toward pre-pandemic levels, according to national and local reports from CBRE.
Metrics gauging the life sciences sector across the country varied in the fourth quarter as the industry normalized after robust growth in 2021 and much of 2022. San Diego’s market-wide vacancy rate increased one full percentage higher than the previous quarter (3.4 percent) ending at 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter. Total demand for laboratory space was 980,000 square feet at the end of the past quarter, still within the quarterly average before the pandemic.
“Demand from life science companies to expand real estate has reverted to pre-pandemic norms. Most life sciences companies cannot go public in today’s climate, which has translated to boards putting pressure on management teams to extend their runway. Without the ability to tap into the public markets, life science companies are poised for more mergers and acquisitions and partnership transactions with big pharma. Once companies have a clear path to raise money, we will see a sizeable uptick in demand,” said CBRE’s Vice Chairman Ted Jacobs.
The core submarkets of Torrey Pines, UTC, Sorrento Mesa and Sorrento Valley lead in leasing activity with 98,490 square feet of lab space leased in the quarter. Overall leasing activity declined from 353,474 in the third quarter to 134,873 in the fourth quarter.
Top photo: The Alexandria GradLabs in University Town Center. (McCullough Landscape)
California and other Western states
reach impasse over Colorado water
By Alastair Bland | Cal Matters
California and other Western states that import water from the parched Colorado River failed to reach an agreement Tuesday on how to cut their use despite a deadline from federal officials. Six states presented the federal government with a proposal to slash the lower basin’s use by 2.9 million acre-feet from their historic allotments— including more than 1 million acre-feet from California, or 25 percent of its entitlements. But California, the largest user of Colorado River water, refused to sign onto the proposal and, instead, hours later issued its own — which mirrors its offer last fall to cut imports by 9 percent, or 400,000 acre feet.
The impasse is over water delivered to Imperial Valley farmers and cities in six Southern California counties.
A severe mega-drought — the driest conditions in 1,200 years — has forced the states to find ways to reduce their imports since they are now consuming far more water than the river contains: Allocations to the United States and Mexico based on historic rights total 16.5 million acre-feet a year, and in most years, they are using around 13 million acre-feet — significantly more than the river’s 11 million acre-feet. Its reservoirs are at record low levels and are expected to keep dropping.
Cubic awarded U.S. Army contract for
modernization of a Combat Training Center
Cubic Mission and Performance Solutions (CMPS) was awarded a prime contract for the Modernization of an FMS Customer’s Combat Training Center (CTC) by the U.S. Army’s
Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation.
CMPS will perform total life-cycle systems management, including sustainment and multiple live training products for individual soldiers, vehicles, anti-tank weapons, fixed/mobile CTC networks, and Observer Controller voice systems. This award continues Cubic’s more than 25-year history supporting foreign partners with live training system capabilities.
Cubic is the largest provider of Live Training Systems (LTS) to the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and its Allies.
Former office and retail building in Vista
to be converted into residential community
A real estate development company has purchased a mixed-use, two-story building at 1070 Santa Fe Ave. in Vista for $6.7 million and intends to convert the former office retail space into a residential community. The purchaser is AMB SSF LLC. The seller was RLS Investments LLC.
The residential conversion is set to begin immediately, and the developer expects to complete the project in the near future, according to Jeff Abramson of Lee & Associates, who represented the seller. Peter Scepanovic and Corey McHenry of Colliers International represented the buyer.
American Bar Association schedules Consumer
Protection & Data Privacy Conference Feb. 8-9
The American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section will host the Consumer Protection & Data Privacy Conference Feb. 8-9 at the Westgate Hotel in Downtown San Diego. California Attorney General Rob Bonta will deliver a keynote address at 9:30 a.m. in the opening session on Feb. 8. Other speakers will explore a range of timely topics in the consumer protection and data privacy fields.
The conference comes at a critical time for consumer protection and will examine the different paths available to the nation with respect to policy and enforcement, as well as challenges and opportunities presented by new privacy laws across the globe. The two-day meeting will bring together a broad range of practitioners from the private sector and federal and state governments. For the full agenda, click here.
Nicole Donnelly of San Diego named the new
chairwoman of the Better Business Bureau
Nicole Donnelly of Miramar Kitchen & Bath in San Diego has been named the new chairwoman of the Better Business Bureau Serving the Pacific Southwest.
Donnelly has owned and operated Miramar Kitchen & Bath since 1991 and has been a BBB Accredited Business since its inception.Her company specializes in residential
bathroom and kitchen remodeling and has remodeled thousands of bathrooms and kitchens in San Diego.
She served on the board and then became president of the local chapter of NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry) and is on the Advisory Committee for SNAP (the Spay and Neuter Action Project) in San Diego.
Nicole has worked at Miramar Kitchen & Bath with her husband, Martin, for almost 30 years.
City of San Diego starts full enforcement
of Sidewalk Vending Ordinance
the City of San Diego has betun enforcing the Sidewalk Vending Ordinance in city beach areas after the ordinance became effective in the Coastal Overlay Zone last month, following certification by the California Coastal Commission and the San Diego City Council.
The ordinance went into effect in June 2022 in all areas outside the Coastal Overlay Zone, bringing the city into compliance with Senate Bill 946, a California law that decriminalized sidewalk vending statewide and set parameters on how cities could impose regulations.
The Sidewalk Vending Ordinance requires pushcart and stationary sidewalk vendors to apply for permits to use the public right of way or public property while regulating how, when and where permitted permitted sidewalk vendors conduct business. Sidewalk vendors are explicitly prohibited from interfering with public access to the shoreline.
BluPeak Credit Union to donate 1 percent
of 2023 revenue to support clean water
SAN DIEGO — BluPeak Credit Union announced that, part of its pledge to be a purpose-driven financial institution, it will include donating 1 percent of its 2023 revenue to support charitable organizations promoting access to clean water. “BluPeak is dedicated to building community, inspiring compassion, and being a conduit for positive change,” said BluPeak President and CEO Todd Tharp. “We can accomplish this by supporting access to clean water as a means for bridging socioeconomic gaps and providing aid to those in need.”
Energage names The Ken Blanchard Companies
a winner of the USA Top Workplace Award
SAN DIEGO – The Ken Blanchard Companies, a leader in management training, consulting, and coaching, has been recognized with a Top Workplaces USA 2023 award by Energage LLC. The national award was given in the category of companies with 150–499 employees and is based entirely on feedback from an employee engagement survey administered by Energage. The anonymous survey measures several aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, and connection. The company has won the award for seven years in the local San Diego market.
Illumina appoints Joydeep Goswami
as chief financial officer
SAN DIEGO – Illumina Inc., a global leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies, has appointed Joydeep Goswami as chief financial officer.
Goswami previously served as Illumina’s chief strategy and corporate development officer and interim chief financial officer.
As CFO, Goswami will be responsible for the company’s financial planning and analysis, accounting, investor relations, internal audit, tax, and treasury functions.
He will also continue to lead the corporate development and strategic planning function.
Goswami has more than 20 years of experience in the life sciences industry.
Prior to joining Illumina, he was president, clinical next generation sequencing and oncology at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
HCAP Partners launches
Employee Assistance Fund
SAN DIEGO — HCAP Partners, a California-based private equity firm and nationally recognized impact investor, has launched its Employee Assistance Fund in partnership with Canary, a technology platform designed to provide individuals with money at pivotal moments in their lives. The fund will provide financial assistance in the form of grants to HCAP Partners V, L.P. portfolio company employees who are facing unexpected expenses or hardship due to unforeseen circumstances. Canary’s platform will provide a confidential, easy-to-use online portal for portfolio company employees to apply for assistance and track the status of their application.
Perry Clemons is gamifying
D&I training with Inequality-opoly
SAN DIEGO — Seasoned educator Perry Clemons has used data and gamification to make sure that the lessons he teaches are engaging, understandable, and personalized. But, he found the same could not be said when he was going to diversity, equity, and inclusion training courses over the years. With such an important subject matter, Perry was inspired to create Inequality-opoly: The Game of Structural Racism and Sexism in America. Perry created Inequality-opoly as a board game simulating how structural racism and sexism intersect to serve as obstacles to the accumulation and sustaining of wealth in America. The game is designed to raise awareness, provoke discussion, and advance discourse about how structural racism and sexism function in our society. Read more
Eric Ostertag resigns as executive
chairman of Poseida Therapeutics
SAN DIEGO — Poseida Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage cell and gene therapy company advancing a new class of treatments for patients with cancer and rare diseases, announced that Eric Ostertag, M.D., has resigned as executive chairman and will retire from the board of directors effective Feb. 3. He will continue as a consultant to the company to advise on technical and scientific matters. As Poseidas founding CEO, stertag directed the company’s spin out from Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology company. Ostertag also founded Transposagen, where he was CEO from 2003 to 2015
Holland America Line guests donate
$450,000 for aid to Ukrainians
SAN DIEGO — A fundraising effort by cruise line passengers that took place on the high seas around six different continents culminated on Tuesday with a large donation for Ukrainian relief. Holland America Line presented a check for $450,000 at the Port of San Diego to the global humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief, money raised during the premium cruise line’s On Deck for a Cause campaign. For 10 months on every cruise in the line’s 11-ship fleet, guests could make a $25 donation to participate in a fundraising 5K walk during their sailing, in locales ranging from Alaska to Europeand the Panama Canal to Australia.
Intel and UC San Diego join DARPA program
to prevent computing systems exploitation
SAN DIEGO — Intel and UC San Diego have been selected to join the Hardening Development Toolchains Against Emergent Execution Engines program team for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Adversaries have crafted increasingly complex cyberattacks in reaction to decades of platform hardening efforts and increasing IT security measures that reduce vulnerabilities. Attempts to mitigate these threats have fallen short, creating an increased risk of intrusion into current and legacy code. At UC San Diego, the effort will be led by professors Deian Stefan and Dean Tullsen from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Kevin D’Amour joins Stemson
Therapeutics as chief scientific officer
SAN DIEGO – Stemson Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company developing an iPSC-derived autologous cell therapy to regenerate healthy hair follicles, announced that Kevin D’Amour, a veteran cell therapy development expert, has joined Stemson as chief scientific officer.
D’Amour brings two decades of stem cell-derived cell therapy development experience to the Stemson team.
D’Amour was at ViaCyte from 2002 until 2021 and served as the company’s chief scientific officer from 2011-2021. At ViaCyte, he led the development of the first stem cell-derived cell therapies designed to replace pancreatic beta cells for the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
Rincon water conservation initiative
saves customers 132 million gallons
ESCONDIDO — Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District reports that its customer-driven Demand Management program helped water customers save over 132 million gallons of water since its inception in 2015. The savings equates to over $1.2 million, putting a significant amount of money back into customer pockets. This landmark conservation effort, which saved 407 acre feet of water, is critical as the San Diego region joins the state in a battle against the severe drought and water crisis.
