Growth spurt for Children's

Moving quickly to expand its new research campus, Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center has paid $43.6 million for an entire downtown block that could someday house one of the largest laboratory facilities in the city.

The property could provide an additional 900,000 square feet for the Children's Hospital Research Institute and bring its lab space to 1.4 million square feet. The hospital took over two buildings last fall for a total of 500,000 square feet.

"No one's ever made a splash like this," said Matt Christian, senior director of Cushman & Wakefield, a Seattle brokerage firm that tracks lab space. "Typically, you start with one to two buildings."

Children's is trying to create a research campus in the same league as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, both with facilities in South Lake Union.

It's focusing on research space in an effort to attract highly skilled doctors and improve treatment options available for patients.

"This is the final piece" of real estate needed, said Thomas Hansen, Children's chief executive.

The property was purchased from Seattle-based developer Touchstone. The block currently holds a parking lot and a small building.

Children's paid cash, using hospital reserve funds and private donations contributed through the hospital's ongoing, seven-year fundraising campaign to raise $300 million.

The hospital doesn't plan to build the lab space for at least a decade, said James Hendricks, president of Children's Hospital Research Institute. He isn't sure what Children's expects to spend.

The construction cost could reach as high as $500 million, said Christian.

Lab space typically costs upward of $500 a square foot to build — about $150 per square foot more than office space because of all the additional features required in a lab.

Last year, the hospital paid $79.5 million for the 9th and Stewart Life Sciences Building, and it plans to exercise an option this fall to buy the former Qwest building at 1915 Terry Ave. Those buildings, adjacent to the new property, total about 500,000 square feet.

At that time, hospital officials said their goal was a campus of 1 million square feet.

The research expansion will mean more jobs for scientists and technicians as the hospital builds out its property.

The Research Institute is studying such topics as the basic mechanisms of the immune system, the role of genetics in human development, and childhood cancers. It employs 325 people and plans to hire an additional 125 employees within the next five years in the existing buildings.

The hospital estimates that for every 250,000 square feet of space it builds, it will create several hundred new jobs, typically with annual salaries between $40,000 to $60,000, said Hendricks.

"It will add to the economic development of the region," he said.

The hospital plans to fill the 9th and Stewart Life Sciences Building and the former Qwest building before it develops the new city block.

Research-institute workers are scattered in several buildings. Some already occupy one floor of the nine-story 9th and Stewart building; others are at Children's Westlake and Metropolitan Park West facilities.

In late summer, research employees at the other locations will move into the Life Sciences building,

The hospital is retaining its main patient-care facility in Laurelhurst and doesn't currently have plans to expand the research institute on that campus.

Kirsten Orsini-Meinhard: 206-464-2391 or kmeinhard@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published May 17, was corrected May 18. A previous version of this story should have said that Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center has no plans to expand its research institute at the Laurelhurst campus. It has started a master planning process in anticipation of expanding patient care services in Laurelhurst over the next 15 to 20 years.