According to BioForward Wisconsin, the biohealth sector is a high-quality job generator for Wisconsin — with 129,000 employees earning an average annual wage 70% higher than the state’s private sector average, and biohealth’s 10.6% job growth leads the state. Wisconsin also matches overall growth rates in the national biohealth industry and has outpaced the country in two subsectors: drugs and pharmaceuticals, and research, testing, and medical labs.
“There’s 0% vacancy for lab real estate in Madison, so our biotech companies don’t have the space to grow,” says Zach Slagle, director of development at Madison-based SARA Investment Real Estate, which recently announced the development of Velocity Station.
The new $60 million, 159,000-square-foot lab facility will be built on 6.36 acres formerly occupied by the now-demolished Clock Tower Office Park on Odana Road. Velocity Station was designed by EUA | Architecture, Engineering + Design and will be constructed by Ideal Builders with 16-foot ceiling heights, 100 pounds per square foot of load capacity, and abundant capacity for plumbing, electrical, and HVAC requirements. The building will have a common lobby connecting two three-story wings with floorplates measuring 25,000 square feet. Construction, expected to take 16 months, will begin once an anchor tenant is secured.
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