Oxford Set to Deliver One of the Largest Life Sciences Conversion Projects in London, Shakes Up Executive Ranks
Oxford Properties Group and its partner Pioneer Group plan to convert a historic 300,000-square-foot office building in London, U.K., into a life sciences hub, expanding Oxford's global push into the sector.
The Toronto-based real estate investor and developer is collaborating with London-based Pioneer, a real estate developer and operator with a focus on life sciences and technology facilities.
In the announcement, Oxford and Pioneer say they will turn Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square, located in central London, into a 220,000-square-foot life sciences hub with 80,000 square feet of office, amenity, meeting and retail spaces. The building will host the BioIndustry Association (BIA), the trade association for U.K. life sciences companies.The first phase of the transition is expected to be complete in August 2024.
Abigail Shapiro, the head of life sciences and residential, Europe at Oxford, said in the release, “The conversion of Victoria House is a unique opportunity to deliver one of the largest life sciences conversion projects in Central London to date.”
Pioneer Group CEO Richard O’Boyle said he looks forward to supporting the local community in meeting growing demand from life sciences organizations that seek amenities and the prime locations to attract talent.
About Victoria House
Victoria House is a Grade II-listed building constructed in the 1920s and operated as the head office of the Liverpool Victoria building society until 1996, according to the release.
Oxford and Pioneer plans include converting the 220,000 square feet of internal space into a Grade-A, wet lab-enabled, life sciences space.
The remaining 80,000 square feet will be used for offices, amenities, meeting and retail purposes featuring “heritage meeting rooms, an eighth-floor club lounge and a roof terrace overlooking Central London.”
To bolster its sustainability, the project will seek BREEAM Excellent certification and targets an EPC A energy rating.
Conversion is currently underway, with the first phase of 190,000 square feet of lab-enabled space, with a fully fitted incubator and grow-on space, due for completion in the fall of 2024.
“This gives the project an important early-mover advantage,” the release said, “with the vast majority of new London life science projects not expected to be delivered until at least 2026.”
There was no cost disclosed for the conversion.
Oxford’s interest in life sciences
The release gave several reasons for the conversion of Victoria House. The property’s floor-to-ceiling height, internal infrastructure and scale of the floor plates makes it ideal for conversion, Oxford and Pioneer believe.
The building is also in “prime location” and located within London’s Knowledge Quarter in the immediate vicinity of the King’s Cross life sciences hub where it will neighbour universities, hospitals and medical research centres.
“Given Victoria House’s central location and proximity to many educational and medical establishments, as well as investment capital targeting research and development in the sector, it provides the perfect ingredients for the creation of a new life sciences hub,” Shapiro said in the announcement.
The U.K. has invested significant sums into life sciences, exemplified by a recent $1.1 billion government package designed to spur occupier demand.
There is a “critical shortage” of commercially available lab space in London, the release states, with research from Savills showing functional full occupancy has been reached with a sub-one per cent vacancy rate as of Q1 2023.
Oxford has been taking interest in life sciences markets since 2017, with a current eight million square feet of completed, conversion and ground-up development.
It entered the U.K. life sciences market with a $77.2 million purchase for 310 Cambridge Science Park, and spent almost $1 billion on four assets in the U.S.
Oxford reports having completed approximately $4.2 billion of life sciences investment since 2021 and has secured $6.8 billion of follow-on development opportunities.
Oxford Properties issued a press release stating that it and Pioneer Group have launched plans for Central London's largest office-to-life sciences conversion project and secured a first lease:
Oxford Properties Group (“Oxford”), a leading global real estate investor, asset manager and developer, and Pioneer Group, the UK’s first nationwide company to combine laboratory development and operation with venture building, have launched plans to convert Victoria House in Bloomsbury Square, central London, into a state of the art life sciences hub. The project has secured full planning approval and Oxford and Pioneer Group have also announced that Victoria House will be the new home of the BioIndustry Association (“BIA”), the trade association for UK life sciences.
Increased venture capital activity, funding and support from the UK government, including the recently announced £650 million “Life Sci for Growth” package, as well as wider investor interest into life sciences research and development, continue to spur occupier demand. The project will deliver meaningful new supply of best-in-class lab space to the London market amid a critical shortage of commercially available lab space in the city, which, according to the latest research from Savills, has reached functional full occupancy with a sub 1% vacancy rate as of Q1 2023.
Victoria House is a Grade-II listed building, which boasts a neo-classical façade with internal Art Deco features. It was designed and constructed in the 1920s for its former owner-occupier the Liverpool Victoria building society and served as its as head office until 1996. Oxford and Pioneer Group plan to convert 220,000 sq ft of the building’s 300,000 sq ft internal area into Grade A state-of-the-art wet lab-enabled life sciences space. The cutting edge development will have customer wellbeing and sustainability at its core, with the project on track to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’ certification and targeting an EPC A energy rating.
The property’s floor-to-ceiling height, internal infrastructure and scale of the floor plates mean it is well suited for conversion. The completed property will seek to support an ecosystem of occupiers ranging from start-ups in designated incubator spaces, to larger pharmaceutical companies as well as firms supporting the life sciences industry. Victoria House will also feature 80,000 sq ft of office, amenity, meeting and retail spaces to provide an exceptional employee experience for end users, highlighted by heritage meeting rooms, an eighth floor club lounge and a roof terrace overlooking central London.
Victoria House is in a prime location within London’s Knowledge Quarter in the immediate vicinity of the King’s Cross life sciences hub. It offers close proximity to several world-renowned universities, hospitals and medical research centres including University College London, GSK and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Its location gives Victoria House a true competitive advantage versus London’s existing life sciences space and immediate development pipeline, which is predominantly in edge-of-town and fringe locations.
With conversion works underway, the first phase, which includes 190,000 sq ft of lab-enabled space including a fully fitted incubator and grow-on space, is due to complete in Autumn 2024. This gives the project an important early-mover advantage with the vast majority of new London life science projects not expected to be delivered until at least 2026. This new supply will be delivered against a backdrop of what the recent LabTrack report by Gerald Eve concluded was “critically low” levels of lab-enabled workspace. The report concluded that low levels of available lab space in London was forcing some occupiers to look beyond the capital.
Abigail Shapiro, Head of Life Sciences & Residential, Europe at Oxford Properties, commented: “The conversion of Victoria House is a unique opportunity to deliver one of the largest life sciences conversion projects in Central London to date. We will give this iconic building a new lease of life by creating state-of-the-art lab space through a highly sustainable redevelopment which avoids the environmental impact of a new-build scheme. Given Victoria House’s central location and proximity to many educational and medical establishments, as well as investment capital targeting research and development in the sector, it provides the perfect ingredients for the creation of a new life sciences hub. By converting the space, we gain significant speed-to-market advantages to deliver critically needed lab space, all in a building and location that will provide an exceptional employee experience.
The lease to BIA, the voice of the UK’s life sciences industry, is an important validation of our vision that Victoria House will become one of the preeminent life sciences hubs in London, and we look forward to working with Pioneer Group to achieve that goal.”
Richard O’Boyle, CEO of Pioneer Group, added: “This announcement is an important milestone for our plans with Oxford Properties at Victoria House. London is a renowned global life sciences hub and together we look forward to joining and supporting the local community by not only meeting growing demand from life sciences organisations that seek the ideal combination of amenities and location to attract talent and drive the future of scientific discovery, but also by creating strong, long-term relationships with local organisations working to maintain London’s unique identity as a major player on the international stage. Victoria House will be a premium offering which help further our goal of helping homegrown and international businesses solve the greatest unmet medical and healthcare needs of our time.”
Steve Bates, CEO of the BioIndustry Association, commented: “The UK has a prominent life sciences sector which is developing extraordinary science and delivering world changing products and services that will be transformational to our future lives. I truly believe that this innovation and pace is only sustainable if you create a stimulating and nurturing environment where companies at all stages of development can meet, network and collaborate. The aims of Victoria House and for the London life sciences sector are very exciting, which is why I wanted the BIA to be based there. The space is fantastic and the advantages it offers to the UK industry is going to be incredibly attractive to start-ups and established companies alike.”
Oxford and Pioneer Group’s Life Science Experience
Active in the life sciences industry since 2017, Oxford’s global life science business has grown across the top-ten North American life science markets, the UK and continental Europe. Its life sciences portfolio encompasses 8 million square feet of completed properties, conversion projects and ground-up development and includes R&D labs and GMP facilities. Since the start of 2021, Oxford has completed approximately £2.5 billion of life sciences investment and secured a further £4 billion of follow-on development opportunities.Oxford’s initial European life sciences focus is on opportunities located within the London-Oxford-Cambridge ‘Golden Triangle’ and in Paris. Oxford made its first investment in the sector in Europe in May 2021, with the acquisition of 310 Cambridge Science Park, followed by the acquisition of Biocitech in Paris in November 2022 in partnership with French developer, Novaxia. In London, Oxford has been selected by Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation to deliver the development of its 300,000 sq ft Snowsfield Quarter site in London Bridge alongside Reef Group.
Pioneer Group’s operating asset base consists of more than four million square feet of highly leased office/laboratory and manufacturing space in key locations in the UK and Ireland, including Nottingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin. The company delivers the most comprehensive suite of accelerator and venture building, helping founders to transfer cutting-edge discovery into visionary ventures that scale. Pioneer Group’s in-house team supports start-ups and scale-ups and works in partnership with organisations such as Innovate UK AbbVie, Astellas, Academic Health Science Networks and many of the UK’s leading universities.
Pioneer Group also backs game-changing, early-stage life science companies with investment from its venture capital funds. Since 2015, Pioneer Group has supported over 80 early-stage ventures which have raised in excess of £200 million.
Oxford Properties and Pioneer Group have appointed CBRE and JLL as leasing agents. For enquiries or more information, please visit victoriahouselondon.com.
This is a major life sciences conversion project in central London and Oxford couldn't have picked a better partner to undertake it.
Demand remains very high, supply low, and the location is ideal because it is a knowledge hub in central London where universities and private sector researchers can meet and interact.
Conversion is already underway and Oxford and Pioneer have secured a first lease from the BioIndustry Association.
The project will be complete in the autumn of 2024, which is record time, allowing Oxford to gain "significant speed-to-market advantages to deliver critically needed lab space, all in a building and location that will provide an exceptional employee experience."
Moreover, to bolster its sustainability, the project will seek BREEAM Excellent certification and targets an EPC A energy rating.
This too will attract top pharmaceutical companies to lease out available space there.
Interestingly, in its 2023 Global Sustainability Report, Oxford highlighted efforts made in 2022, including:
- a 20 per cent reduction in its absolute carbon footprint since 2019;
- an interim operational carbon intensity target;
- the launch of its Green Financing Framework; and tracking green space coverage across its "direct-drive" (owned and managed by Oxford) and third-party managed assets.
Hala El Akl, Oxford’s senior director of ESG, emphasized the critical steps taken last year in an interview with SustainableBiz:
“This latest report is the first time we’ve talked about our evolved framework which has three priorities and they are linked to decarbonization. The first one is around integrating ESG consideration throughout all of our business activities. The second one is around solidifying the data foundation, and the third one is around decarbonization.”
What else? Today, Oxford appointed Chad Remis into newly created CIO role as part of refreshed leadership structure under the new CEO Daniel Fournier:
Oxford Properties Group (“Oxford”), a leading global real estate investor, developer, and manager today announced a series of promotions and changes to its leadership structure with Chad Remis promoted into a newly created Chief Investment Officer (‘CIO’) role. The firm has also nominated six new Oxford professionals to its expanded global Executive Committee which includes the promotion of Liz Murphy to Chief Financial Officer (‘CFO’).
Chad Remis previously led Oxford’s North American business in his role as Executive Vice President of North America, which constitutes 75% of its deployed capital, and has enjoyed progressively senior roles during his 10-year career at Oxford. Under Remis’ leadership, Oxford has substantially retooled its North American portfolio by deploying significant capital into its high conviction investment strategies across industrial, multifamily, life sciences and credit. At the same time, Remis oversaw a number of record setting dispositions including the sale of Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto, St John’s Terminal in New York, and One Memorial in Boston, all of which were the largest single-asset office transactions of the year in their respective markets.
The creation of a Chief Investment Officer role marks an important part in the evolution of Oxford Properties which, over the past decade, has grown into one of the most globally significant real estate companies.
“Oxford has been on a remarkable growth journey,” commented Daniel Fournier, Executive Chair of Oxford Properties. “Today Oxford is invested in eight asset classes across 14 countries and operates across four continents. However, we are one team and one business dedicated to delivering an overall return to OMERS. As such, it’s the right time in Oxford’s growth story to appoint a CIO to take a global view of our investments and portfolio. This will ensure we find and execute upon the best opportunities across the globe to deliver the best overall return for OMERS and our capital partners.
“Chad is the perfect candidate for the role. He is one of the very best real estate investors in the business, is highly respected within our organization and industry, and has led our North American team with distinction for the past six years. In this new role, we will utilize Chad’s strengths and expertise across a global mandate to lead a team that harnesses the collective power of all our investment professionals, irrespective of their location. As our business continues to increase in scale, reach and complexity, this evolved structure will set us up for our next decade of growth.”
Liz Murphy, who has played a dual role of Senior Vice President of Finance at Oxford and Global Head of Tax at OMERS for almost five years, has been promoted to become Oxford’s CFO and join its Executive Committee. Murphy has played a critical role to the success of both Oxford and the OMERS enterprise for over a decade and has been mentored for the role by Allison Wolfe, Oxford’s outgoing CFO and Global Head of Portfolio Management, who will be leaving the organization in mid-September.
The following Oxford leaders have also been nominated to join Oxford’s Executive Committee alongside current members Daniel Fournier, Alysha Valenti, Chief Legal Officer, Chad Remis, Joanne McNamara, EVP Europe, and Rob Ecclestone, Head of Human Resources.
- Alessandro Fiascaris, Head of Asia Pacific
- Claire McIntyre, Head of Corporate & Public Affairs
- Nu Suwankosai, Head of Global Credit
- Randy Hoffman, EVP North American Investments
- Tyler Seaman, EVP Canada
“What has struck me since I joined Oxford as Executive Chair earlier this year is the sheer depth of talent we have at this organization, and the appointments are worthy recognition of the contributions each individual has made to Oxford,” added Fournier. “As a growing, global business, these new appointments increase not only the geographic representation of our Executive Committee but also better recognize the importance of our corporate functions to Oxford’s success.
“Our expanded Executive Committee has been built to ensure we have robust succession planning in place for key leadership roles. Most importantly, it delivers new opportunities for those leaders appointed to the committee today and new paths of growth for Oxford’s next generation of leaders. We would like to thank Allison for her significant contributions to Oxford over the past 13 years.”
Well, it looks like Dan Fournier is busy putting key people at top jobs as he shakes things up at Oxford.
I don't know much about Chad Remis but he has successfully built Oxford's North American portfolio into a powerhouse. He's also a contender for the top job when Fournier steps down.
The other big move is Allison Wolfe leaving Oxford. Remember her name as she is a big shot in the real estate industry and her departure will be seen as an opportunity to snatch her up at another big fund.
What else? Dan Fournier's new executive committee is way too big. Are all these people going to report to him? God help him! Maybe that's why he named Chad as CIO, to help him manage all these people.
Anyway, I congratulate Chad Remis for being named CIO and others who were appointed to executive committee and wish them continued success.My sources tell me there are two other women at Oxford worth noting on my blog: Alysha Valenti, EVP and Chief Legal Officer and Joanne McNamara, EVP Europe & Asia Pacific. "They are both excellent leaders" (I do not know Alysha but have seen Joanne's name on many deals).
Alright, let me wrap it up there, if you have any comments, just email me at LKolivakis@gmail.com.
Below, Bird & Bird's associate Ning-Ning Li speaks to partners Sally Shorthose and James Baillieu as well as associate Toby Bond, to hear their thoughts on the future of London's life sciences sector.
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