Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) has acquired a $177m (€148.7m) life science office building project in San Carlos, California.

As part of real estate transactions disclosed in a meeting document, the pension fund said it bought Brittan West, a  173,757sqft building project expected to be completed in two years. 

Florida SBA provided $80m for the acquisition with construction loan funded through Pacific Western Bank.

L&B Realty Advisors was the separate account manager on this acquisition.

Paul Noland, a vice president of acquisitions with L&B, said: “We think that the San Carlos market is an already established life science market based on the assets that are already there.”

Noland said there is currently five million square feet of tenant demand with only two to three million square feet of new product being created in the US.

L&B is looking for additional US life sciences assets to buy in areas like Boston/Cambridge, Northern California, Seattle and San Diego.

Florida SBA said it has also acquired the 90,598sqft Brookfield Commons medical office building in Richmond, Virginia through its separate account manager Heitman. The asset was acquired for $31m with $16m of equity coming from the pension fund. 

The pension fund also sold a four-property student housing portfolio with Heitman for $197m according to the meeting document.

The properties, located in Nevada, Missouri, Mississippi and Orlando, were acquired by the pension fund from 2013 to 2016 for a total of $157.3m.

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