ARC has announced that it is adding ‘Refinery’, a 121,000 sq. ft science and tech laboratory building, to its West London Cluster to address the crippling lab space shortage across London and the wider Golden Triangle.
Construction for Refinery will commence this year and is due for completion in 2024. The company is bringing a new landmark space to the banks of the River Thames to house the thriving innovation community, which has seen a 43 per cent increase in life science start-ups across London and the South East.
Refinery will combine flexible wet and dry lab space and state-of-the-art research and development facilities, with amenities including restaurants, cafés and event and presentation studios, suitable for science and tech SMEs and multinationals.
The announcement comes just weeks after the company launched Motherlabs in West London, its accelerator and incubator space (already over 60 per cent occupied). Together with Refinery, it will allow start-ups to scale at pace and transition to larger laboratories on the same site.
Daniel Pagella, senior director for asset management at ARC, said: “Science organisations need support to develop sustainably and efficiently. They need access to technically and commercially capable space as they grow, in an environment that will help them to attract the talent that’s critical to their success. We’ve designed ARC West London to do just that.
“West London is a strategically important location for innovation, with leading research institutions and universities, it’s a natural choice for life science organisations. Refinery will meet the need for space and drive growth of the West London science community, and ultimately help support the local and national U.K. economy.”
Neelam Patel, ceo MedCity added: “We welcome this addition to lab provision capacity for life sciences companies, who have struggled to find adequate space in London. Our report on life sciences real estate in London found that demand has been outstripping supply for the last six or more years, and the rate of demand has been increasing, so locations like Motherlabs and Refinery that support the needs of start-ups as they grow and are in proximity to centres of research and clinical excellence, are much needed.”
ARC West London, formerly known as Manbré Wharf, is an integral part of the broader West London life science ecosystem, close to Imperial College’s medical training and research campus within Charing Cross Hospital and close to the internationally acclaimed Institute of Cancer Research, Imperial’s White City Campus and Hammersmith Hospital.
With demand for high-quality, strategically located lab-enabled space outstripping supply, ARC plans further growth across the U.K. and Europe and is in active discussions on several potential new sites. ARC has five million sq. ft of development potential across the U.K.’s Golden Triangle, with three million sq. ft planned at the 700-acre Harwell site and a further 750,000 sq. ft in Oxford.
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