City Office REIT, Inc. (CIO) is a real estate investment company that owns and operates high-quality office properties in the Southern and Western United States. CIO acquired a six-building portfolio in the Sorrento Mesa submarket of San Diego, engaging FPBA for programming through construction administration of exterior upgrades and amenity space. FPBA designed outdoor amenities to tie the buildings together for a cohesive campus environment. An oasis in the center of the campus, City Park features several areas for dining and relaxing. A turf lawn provides flexible space for recreational activities, while built-in benches, a covered trellis, and a raised wood deck offer plenty of seating. A food truck parking space allows for variety in lunch options and introduces a novel culinary experience.
Ideally situated in the heart of the life sciences community in San Diego, The Boardwalk at Science Center Drive is a flexible multi-tenant science research campus formed out of two new ground-up buildings and one existing building demolished down to the structure. The design brings to life a variety of spaces for scientific research with both interior and exterior campus amenities to support a first-class facility. The building design emphasizes a common architectural style and introduces a unifying circulation experience called The Boardwalk that connects the three-building campus to the featured common areas. Campus indoor amenities include a fitness center, full-service restaurant with interior and exterior seating, and expansive conference center that can transform into an all-hands meeting or event space. Outdoor amenities offer a variety of seating and meeting areas with a mulitfunctional lawn space and sports court. The exterior features of this campus are designed to take advantage of the Southern California climate by connecting tenants to the natural surroundings of Torrey Pines. “It’s a project that’s going be functional for the life science community that we have here in San Diego, but it’s also just a really aesthetically pleasing, elegant design,” said Mike Dorris, Senior Vice President – Co-Head of Life Science at Healthpeak.
FPBA joined forces with McCarthy Construction and Cuningham Group Architecture to deliver a 153,000-square-foot laboratory and office building tenant improvement for Sharp HealthCare. Sharp HealthCare purchased the Cox Communications Building at 5651 Copley Drive in San Diego to co-locate the Metro Lab, Sharp Reese-Stealy (SRS) downtown lab and administrative offices and call center operations. The project included a retrofit of the existing spaces and addition of a new second floor. The project achieves flexibility through use of modular lab and office furniture. An open lab concept between the analytical testing labs facilitates sharing of staff, equipment and workload. Sustainability and energy-saving features have been incorporated throughout.
FPBA worked with Swinerton, Snipes Dye Associates and Coffman Engineers to coordinate the installation of this formidable bronze sculpture that commemorates Rex, the lion who inspired the creation of the Zoo in 1916. Standing only on one paw and more than 27 feet tall, Rex welcomes visitors at the Zoo’s entrance. Rex’s imposing stance was made possible by anchoring the statue into 50 tons of concrete below the ground. Bronze sea creatures and flamingos set in concrete surround Rex, while a central sun element forms his landing pad. A decorative plaque highlights donors Craig and Mark Grosvenor, and concrete benches provide seating for visitors. CBS News 8 – San Diego, CA News Station – KFMB Channel 8
Navigate BioPharma is a biopharmaceutical company and subsidiary of Novartis focused on providing and meeting the increasing demand for specialized services in oncology clinical trials. FPBA was brought in for a 25,000-square-foot lab-office tenant improvement for NAV-2 adjacent to the NAV-1 building in Carlsbad to accommodate the growing needs of the company. Navigate needed to bring the new building up to the quality of NAV-1 and integrate with the Novartis space standards while maximizing available laboratory space. With higher density in open offices, the Navigate users were concerned about privacy and acoustics being compromised. Through careful selection of functional, ergonomic workstations, and a wide variety of conference room sizes and casual meeting areas, the team developed an efficient plan clustered into neighborhoods. FPBA created a design that combines a lively color palette with elements of nature by utilizing tubular daylights, wood ceilings and living green wall panels to bring the office to life. One large undivided laboratory provides the ability for scientific groups to share equipment and flex in size as technologies change. The completed NAV-2 space represents an evolution of NAV-1 that provides equal comfort in a smaller space, allowing more room for growth and increasing Navigate’s capability to advance its science.
Bellicum Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing cellular immunotherapies for hematological cancers and solid tumors. The company sought to consolidate its cGMP manufacturing operations into one facility, requiring an expansion within its existing facility. Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects and Houston-based Kirksey Architecture teamed up to provide design services for Bellicum, with FPBA leading the design efforts through design development. With exceptional knowledge of cGMP manufacturing spaces, FPBA designed for the creation of eight independent cleanroom suites with unidirectional flows. The limited amount of expansion space created a need to densify, challenging FPBA to design creatively in order to fit all eight suites. Another challenge involved working around existing hospital utilities running through the building. The project resulted in the conversion of an existing parking structure into an efficiently designed manufacturing space, unifying Bellicum’s operations under one roof.
NuVasive, Inc. is a leading medical device company focused on transforming spine surgery with minimally disruptive, procedurally-integrated solutions. The company selected a site in West Carrollton, Ohio as the location for the build-out of a new medical device facility dedicated to spinal implant and instrument manufacturing. This new facility supports the company’s efforts to increase its internal manufacturing capabilities alongside its existing manufacturing facility in Dayton, Ohio, and enhance its focus on operational excellence. The first phase of the project included programming, design and construction of 35,000 square feet of office and support areas within a 180,000-square-foot existing building plus preliminary programming for the first manufacturing value stream, which will be further developed in later project phases. This also included an enhanced building entry/lobby for guests and employees. The second phase expanded upon the project with schematic design through construction administration services for 20,000 square feet of interior work. The space comprises manufacturing space, a cafe/dining area, large training rooms, fitness rooms, and a social bar/event space. FPBA also provided exterior improvements including the addition of a new entrance canopy to match the scale of the 1,000-foot-long elevation facing Interstate 75. FPBA is continuing work in Ohio with a new ISO 8 cleanroom.
FPBA executed the design through construction administration of a repositioning project at HCP’s Sorrento Gateway Campus in Sorrento Valley. The project comprised renovations to 33,000 square feet of lab, office, lobby and amenity space as well as a new 1,700-square-foot fitness center. FPBA renovated two floors of an existing building as speculative work, prioritizing adaptability to ensure the space could meet the needs of various future tenant scenarios. The first floor features open speculative space, a break room and speculative lab, and the second floor features open office with flexibility to be a lab. A portion of the second floor was removed to create a two-story lobby open to a balcony and glass conference room on the second floor and future tenant suites on the first floor, creating a welcoming entrance with more natural light and visibility to the refreshed interiors. The renovation retains the great lab infrastructure while removing walls that blocked natural light and ocean views. The open ceilings provide a new canvas for future tenants to make their own statement. An elevator core clad in wood veneer, plywood bamboo lobby wall and smooth river rocks underneath stairs bring in elements of the natural environment. FPBA added a fitness center to an underutilized building on the site, which provided new locker and shower rooms, along with a seamless indoor/outdoor exercise space connected by a glass roll-up door. The interior design is open and light-filled with bold, stimulating colors. An orange fabric shade structure creates a pleasant outdoor experience and works with the slatted Ipe wood fence and bamboo plantings to provide screening and privacy.
FPBA provided schematic design through construction administration services for a creative office and lab space located in Torrey Pines Science Park for Inhibrx. A clinical stage biologic therapeutic company, Inhibrx recently won an award of up to $6 million to advance production of its biotherapeutic drug, INBRX-111. The design incorporates elements of nature throughout, blurring the natural and built environments to create a biophilic setting that encourages employee productivity and health. Since most employees will spend more time in the laboratories than their offices, lab areas are pushed to the perimeter with sweeping views of the coastline. To extend natural light further into the building, tubular daylighting devices (TDDs), glass walls and sliding glass doors are used liberally throughout. Interior and exterior operable glass walls surround the recreation area and break areas, creating flexibility, expandability and an opportunity to benefit from the ocean breeze. Low-maintenance moss walls introduce an element of biophilia, known to reduce stress and promote creativity and general well-being.
FPBA was hired to design the new 24,000-square-foot facility consisting of water quality testing laboratories, information systems deployment room, SCADA control room, emergency operations center and administrative offices. The building meets Immediate Occupancy Performance Standards for a Probable Earthquake, supporting the Coachella Valley Water District in providing domestic water, wastewater, recycled water, irrigation/drainage, regional storm water protection and groundwater management services to a population of 265,000 throughout the Coachella Valley, encompassing nearly 1,000 square miles that extends into Riverside, Imperial and San Diego Counties. The design of the water quality testing laboratories aims to lean operations, increase sample turnaround, improve redundancy and resiliency, preserve reliability and deliver flexibility, efficiency and revolutionary critical support space for the benefit of the community at large. The control room receives SCADA data and alarms from all of CVWD’s facilities and is protected from external threats, while the emergency operations center serves as the main hub for CVWD in the event of an emergency and integrates technology to facilitate the receipt, posting and sharing of information. Partnering with Swinerton Builders in a design-assist role, FPBA has worked diligently to manage the design to a budget of $13,600,000.
