Bayfront: Hotels or Life Sciences...just not housing

You could argue that the Covid pandemic is drawing to a close as we approach herd immunity and with it we will see a return to business and leisure travel.  With that a return of the hotel TOT that has been one of the Golden Geese keeping B'game flush would be in the cards.  Or not.  Maybe Zoom and work at home will take a serious dent out of travel.  For now though at least one erstwhile hotel developer on the Bayfront wants the freedom to build differently to attract life sciences tenants.  As this piece in the DJ notes, the Planning Commission is somewhat amenable as are some city councilors.

With the pandemic interrupting the travel and hospitality industries, Burlingame officials are considering introducing the life sciences industry into an area historically preserved for hotels and light industry.  But they balanced those perspectives against an expectation that developers proposing life science buildings would be obligated to supplement their plans with an attractive package of community benefits.

Under the proposal, buildings reserved for tenants in the life sciences industries could be allowed to build a floor-area ratio up to 3.0 — a significant spike from the current standard of 0.75 floor-area ratio for every building in the area other than hotels.

And while support for the vision was broad during a challenging time in the travel and hospitality industry, officials also made clear they continued to prefer development of hotels along the Bayshore.

Noting that hotel tax has been one of the city’s primary sources of income when the economy was thriving, Councilman Michael Brownrigg said he favored preserving incentives for future hotel construction.

TOT has traditionally been about 38% of total city revenues in normal times as noted here back in 2016.  Nobody is suggesting tearing down existing hotels to change the usage, meaning that revenue stream should rebound, but may not reach the percentages of the past.  But the most interesting aspect of the proposal didn't make it into the DJ article.  I have it on good authority that life sciences companies need.....wait for it.....natural gas for their labs.  One source at Genentech called it a "deal killer".  Can the green councilors put aside their one-year old ban and grant a variance?   If one gets it, then the next one is entitled as well.  And if a company can get a variance for a big installation, will you be able to get one for a small installation?

Comments

[Joe]

Here is a bit of background on Life Sciences use of natural gas for critical functions. It's not my expertise so I'm just repeating what my friend told me. A main use is to maintain "GMP": Good Manufacturing Practices
(https://www.nne.com/services/good-manufacturing-practice/). GMP encompasses all sorts of things, but for life sciences it's the packaging of the drugs. Natural gas is used as a dessicant. I had to go look that one up:

"There are a number of innovative and industry specific uses of natural gas. Natural gas desiccant systems, which are used for dehumidification, are increasingly popular in the plastics, pharmaceutical, candy, and even recycling industries. In each of these industries, moisture filled air can lead to damage of the end product during its manufacture."

The R&D groups also use it in a number of ways that he was less familiar with.

Maybe someone with expertise can weigh in?

[Paloma Ave]

I will overwhelmingly support any and all councilmembers who vote to reverse the natural gas ban.

What right does anyone have to ban a legal product, just because they feel like it will help "Save our planet"? Even though this has proven to NOT be the case.

Any takers out there?

[Spurinna]

The Invisible Hand of the market is voting No on those council members’.

[Everything's Jake]

I agree with Paloma--natural gas is about as clean as energy gets. And it's generated right here in the USA.
The life science companies generally pay well and have an excellent safety record. Let's grab some of the tax dollars from SSF and Brisbane!

[Mom]

Burlingame can't and shouldn't outbuild Redwood City

Longfellow Real Estate Partners, an commercial space developer with an office based in Redwood City, is seeking to redevelop its 20-building Redwood LIFE office site into a modern life science campus. The project would include 3.24 million square feet of office space, more than doubling the amount of existing office space while including an 82,000-square-foot Amenity Center and a 75,000-square-foot hotel with 150 rooms.

[Joe]

The Planning Commission took another look at it, but apparently (per this DJ article) no mention of the natural gas variances life sciences would need.

As Burlingame sets the table for introducing commercial developments accommodating the life sciences industry along the Bayfront, officials discussed ways to plan growth and address the need for improved public spaces.

https://bit.ly/3eNvMhi

[MBGA]

Hmmm, while browsing on my phone I clicked the bit.ly link and read the story, came back to my desk computer to type this and can't get back to the article to get the specific name of the planning commission lady mentioned in the article because the article is now behind a paywall (one free view per month). If I wasn't cheap I might sign up for the virtual rag but..
anyway,

I appreciate the woman's concern about building pleasant walkways and shade or whatever. I'm wondering if she has worked out the esthetics of the traffic control ingress and egress depending upon the BSL requirements. Are they going to be BSL-1, BSL-2+, BSL-3, or maybe the very sexy and high value BLS-4 labs. There might be some extra fencing and gates where they could grow some pretty trees and such.

BTW, I also wonder how home values are going in close proximity to the labs in Wuhan these days? Up or down? Wouldn't surprise me either way.

[resident]

Audrey Tse is the planning commissioner

[Phinancier]

What a waste of money if we did have the 12 million.

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/burlingame-s-old-bayshore-highway-to-be-redesigned/article_0b39b330-8d7a-11ec-ab19-e7cc2f90b1e4.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1644850803&utm_medium=email&utm_content=read%20more