University City Science Center starts construction of new medical and office building

The University City Science Center, the first and one of the largest urban research and high-tech office parks in the nation, has recently broken ground on a new medical and office building on the northeast corner of 38th & Market Streets. This new building is known as 3737 Science Center and will be 11 storeys tall and 272,700 square feet and it will be connected to 3711 Science Center, the latest Science Center building, completed a few years ago. It is designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects and UJMN Architects + Designers and is expected to achieve LEED Silver certification. The new building will be a center for medical services and will help the Science Center further their mission of helping high-tech start-up companies to commercialize their products and grow.

The new building will have neighboring Penn Presbyterian Medical Center as an anchor tenant, taking up about 155,700 square feet of the space. Penn Presbyterian will use the space for orthopedics and outpatient medical services. Good Shepherd Penn Partners will occupy approximately 30,000 square feet, as well. The remaining 88,000 square feet will be controlled by the Science Center and Wexford Science + Technology, a Baltimore-based company that has a joint venture with the Science Center. That remaining office and research space will be leased to the high-tech start-ups, and other companies, that the Science Center houses and helps cultivate. The ground floor will have retail, including at least one restaurant.

This is the 15th building on the 17-acre Science Center campus, but others are in the works as the Science Center’s office vacancy rate is very low and demand for office and research space is high. At the southwest corner of 38th & Market is a large parking lot, that stretches to 39th Street, which the Science Center is eager to develop soon with a larger research and office complex. And, down the street at 34th and Market Streets, the Science Center is close to building a 17-storey, 270 foot tall, 400,000 square foot office and research building once they get an anchor tenant, just a couple blocks from Drexel’s new building for the Lebow College of Business. They, also, are considering building a residential building at 36th and Market Streets, and a private developer is considering building a highrise apartment building off of the Science Center at 38th and Chestnut Streets. As if all that isn’t enough, a five storey office building, called 2.0 University Place, is under construction at 41st Street and Powelton Avenue. The developer of that building would like to build similar office buildings on neighboring blocks and developer Campus Apartments is considering constructing two twenty storey highrises at 42nd and Chestnut Streets, one an office building and one an apartment building. So, as you can see, a new building boom of office, research, retail, and residential space is occurring in the middle of University City, far from the heart of Center City and its office districts and it is likely to have a profound impact on West Philadelphia and the city’s growing high-tech economy.

If you are interested in buying or selling a home or investment property in University City, also my home, or any other neighborhood in the city, then you can send me an email at Gabriel.gottlieb@lnf.com. You can, also, check out my Facebook realtor page, Gabriel G. Philly Realtor, and my twitter page, @GabrielGPhilaRE. Or you can check out my Long & Foster agent portal, here, or our Long & Foster Philly Center City office, here. You can, also, learn more about 3737 Science Center on the Science Center website here, and look at the rendering and photos that I have below.