Inside Harlem’s unlikely ‘life sciences’ boom

The $700 million Taystee Lab building is located in Manhattanville’s factory district, but the lab goes beyond West Harlem’s manufacturing history. Surrounded by brick buildings on West 126th Street, Taystee spans 11 stories, with skylights overlooking Columbia University and the City College of New York. Inside any of the currently vacant labs, a cloudy, fire-resistant sprinkler covers the steel columns—ready for life sciences tenants in the once-industrial neighborhood.

“Good, bad or indifferent, gentrification has transformed Harlem,” said attorney Larry English, a board member of the East Harlem Development Corporation and former chairman of Manhattan Community Board 9. “This is not the Harlem of 20 years ago that emerged from the crack epidemic … West Harlem has the potential to be one of the epicenters of life science in the country.”

This potential for the life sciences—defined roughly as any science that deals with living organisms—reflects both Harlem’s revitalization and the industry’s growing footprint in New York City. According to Yardi Matrix data, Manhattan and Queens currently have 3.5 million square feet of life sciences projects completed or under construction, with an additional 2.3 million square feet in Manhattan’s planned developments.

Across cities, the life sciences strive “to discover things that help human beings that no one has been able to do before,” explained Scott Metzner, one of two principals at Taystee’s developer, Janus Property Company, which it also produced the neighboring Mink, Malt House and Sweets buildings. . These projects create a commercial corridor that houses biotech tenants such as BioBus, Quicksilver Biosciences and biotech incubator Harlem Biospace.

However, New York’s life sciences efforts, both inside and outside of Harlem, have long been overshadowed by industry powerhouses like Boston and San Francisco. Cambridge, MA, in particular, hosts giants of innovation — notably Covid vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer — and top academic institutions at Harvard, MIT and more. According to Yardi Matrix, Boston is building 8.2 million square feet of life sciences space and boasts an industry portfolio of 10.1 million square feet from this decade alone.

“Every city wants to be the next Boston or San Francisco,” admitted Dr. Brian Brown, director of the Icahn Genomics Institute at Mount Sinai. However, “New York’s bones for research — for a biotech center — I think are the best in the country.”

Within New York, it’s Harlem — especially West Harlem — that’s increasingly exercising those bones. Filled with vacant prewar buildings, West Harlem has harnessed that empty space to nurture life sciences research, anchored by the City College of New York and Columbia. These institutions, along with the Metzner buildings, form what has become West Harlem’s Innovation Triangle.

The universities have also undertaken various expansions, including the 2014 Advanced Science Research Center and the 2016 Jerome L. Green Science Center. Meanwhile in East Harlem, newly constructed laboratories at 121 have developed near the Proton Center of New York, Mount Sinai and Henry J. Carter Special Hospital. Not to mention, Mayor Adams has allocated $27 million for life sciences.

However, it is none of these initiatives, institutions or even developments that demonstrate the potential of Harlem’s life sciences; rather, the neighborhood doubles as an ecosystem capable of attracting and retaining a life sciences workforce, not only through biotech companies and universities, but also through (relatively) reasonable rent prices, mentoring opportunities, and supporting infrastructure that makes a desirable place.

Three years ago, Dr. Vladislav Sandler, CEO of Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals, made what he called an “opportunistic decision” to move into West Harlem’s Mink Building. Previously stationed at Brooklyn’s SUNY Downstate, Sandler assessed the neighborhood’s demanding rents; for 10,000 square feet, Sandler paid $80 to $90 per square foot — less than the $100 per square foot price he found elsewhere in his Manhattan search.

However, price alone can get a tenant through the door, but does not reflect the company’s greater scientific efforts. Instead, Sandler also keeps Hemogenyx’s research mice at Columbia facilities, cashing in on the university’s proximity. Harlem also offers access to Mount Sinai, Rockefeller, Cornell, Sloan Kettering, Einstein and NYU – all easily accessible via Harlem’s many subway and bus lines.

While universities are scattered throughout New York City, Harlem combines them into a cluster that allows for access and collaboration, or, at least, motivation. From the Starbucks on the corner of 125th and Broadway, Sandler has routinely spotted a Nobel Prize recipient walk by.

“When you have all these buildings side by side and people are eating lunch in the same cafes… you start mixing ideas and it becomes an engine of innovation in itself, an organic engine in the same way that New York has built itself in finance “, Brown said.

This is not to overlook the growth or potential of other New York City life sciences projects. The Alexandria Center for Life Sciences at Turtle Bay runs near New York University (though it’s embroiled in a construction scandal), while additional biotech facilities are popping up around Brooklyn’s Sunset Park and other neighborhoods.

However, many of these developments represent one-off projects rather than elements of a robust and open scientific network such as the one established in Harlem. “Instead of all these kind of one-off opportunistic projects, let’s kind of anchor in a neighborhood and really make an impact,” Metzner said, though he’s not immune to the realities of the life sciences industry.

The pandemic and subsequent stock market shock hurt startups, resulting in contraction in key life sciences markets. Likewise, Yardi Matrix reports an overestimation of lab space and oversupply, while, in the past two years, Pfizer has closed locations in places like North Carolina, Seattle and New Jersey. Elizabeth Fassberg, executive director at Life Science Cares, said she has struggled to raise funds because of national industry layoffs.

The city’s housing options have also presented a barrier to life sciences growth, as biotech doesn’t exactly lend itself to remote work — not even the city, not even Harlem, is classified as low-cost. “The housing situation in New York is a game-changer for biotech,” Brown said, noting that biotech workers aren’t making billions of dollars.

However, Harlem can be one of the most affordable places to live in Manhattan. Between June and August of this year, West Harlem recorded a median rent of $3,500, compared to a median of $4,500 for Manhattan as a whole, according to UrbanDigs data. For sales in the second quarter of 2024, West Harlem’s median price was $1 million, while Manhattan’s was $1.68 million, according to UrbanDigs.

However, with cheaper housing comes the threat of gentrification, so life sciences development risks favoring new talent over its pre-existing community. Some Harlem residents have spoken out against Columbia’s West Harlem expansion. According to the Community Service Association, the black population in Community District 9, which includes West Harlem, decreased by 14 percent between 2010 and 2020, while Latino residents fell by 10 percent during the same time period.

STILL Janet Rodriguez, founder and CEO of the cultural nonprofit SoHarlem—located inside the Mink Building—believes that many science nonprofits are working with young people to prioritize the interests of Harlem’s communities. These nonprofits are making scientific entities “realize that they have an obligation to be part of this community beyond renting space,” she said. “Are they cultivating graduates who live in the neighborhood who are qualified for those jobs? Will they have a workforce training component?”

Many of these efforts have already materialized in Harlem. Fassberg runs a citywide student program called “Science Day,” with plans for an October residency at Metzner’s Taystee Building. Similarly, Brown helps operate a student outreach program at Harlem’s Park East High School, as well as the South Bronx Air Academy.

“It’s very important that if we build a biotech center in Harlem, it doesn’t displace residents,” Brown said. Ideally, a biotech company “also serves the community by providing jobs to people there and inspiring people in that community to train or work in the biotech field.”

As Harlem balances life sciences development with community interests, the city is also seeking to attract a scientific workforce. Attracting residents is not just about jobs or housing, but about the neighborhood in general, emphasizing the importance of local businesses.

Both new and old restaurants, for example, now pepper Harlem, from 1988 African restaurant Massaw to the student-filled Plowshares. Still, there’s room for further growth, said Curtis Archer, president of the Harlem Community Development Corporation. “With the restaurants, the shopping opportunities — all those things there, next to an Institute of Higher Learning, it really just enhances the opportunities and enhances the culture of a community,” Archer said.

These social aspects of the neighborhood present a chicken and egg situation; ancillary businesses not only attract and support a workforce, but also, in turn, receive support from that workforce that allows them to remain in operation. People want to live and work in vibrant neighborhoods, English said, but Harlem has a stigma he’s still trying to shake.

“People just need to understand that [Harlem’s] not that far,” Fassberg said, “It’s not dangerous. It’s a beautiful place and there are beautiful people like anywhere else in the city.”