By Joshua Burd
Avison Young has launched a new international practice focused on life sciences, tapping two of its New Jersey-based brokers as co-leaders of the specialty group.
Mark Rose, the firm’s chairman and CEO, announced Wednesday that the new team will span 10 regional markets in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe and assist life sciences companies with their real estate needs. The group includes 17 Avison Young leasing professionals.
Avison Young Principal Tom Giannone and Senior Vice President Steve Bleiweiss, who are based in the firm’s Metropark are the co-leaders of the practice along with Jerry Keeney, principal and managing director of the firm’s San Diego office, and Principal Brian Cooper.
“The new practice group’s members understand the pharmaceutical product life cycle as well as the technical complexities that can create budgetary and scheduling risk associated with life sciences firms’ real estate requirements,” Rose said, later adding: “This experience empowers us to seamlessly service all aspects of our clients’ real estate needs, including site selection and evaluation, lease negotiation, construction management and post-lease project management.”
Requirements can include laboratories, vivariums, pilot plants and manufacturing facilities, Avison Young said in a news release. Group members, who have decades of experience representing life sciences companies globally, will address risks in the planning, designing, engineering and construction phases of life science spaces.
“The life sciences industry is expanding at a rapid pace, accounting for much of the leasing activity in markets such as San Francisco, Boston and San Diego,” Keeney said. “The launch of our partnership at the global level allows us to formulate solutions for our clients who often have operations in more than one location.”
Avison Young said the group will focus on integrating each client’s technical and financial requirements into the lease-negotiation process and incorporating those needs into transaction documents. The approach will look result in strategies with credible budgets and schedules in early stages of transactions, the firm said, providing clients with the facts needed to make more fully informed decisions.
The company also touted the importance of its “value-engineering tools,” which will ensure that real estate solutions are planned, designed and implemented with requisite scalability and completed under budget and on schedule.
“Our new life sciences specialty practice group has created a transparent, risk-averse model that enables us to work with our clients’ internal resources on either a single transaction or for their entire portfolio,” Giannone said.
