Best Real Estate Deal: Second Place Win for JIB at Spring House Innovation Park

Bank: Fulton Bank Designer: MEP Design/STV Inc. Architect: RHJ Associates Landscape Architect: Kohler Landscapes

Thomas Jefferson University leased 25,000 square feet at the Spring House Innovation Park for its $7 million Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing. The institute is housed in an existing two-story building previously occupied by Rohm & Haas, at what is now part of the 133-acre Spring House Innovation Park in Lower Gwynedd. The business park is part of the BioLaunch611+ Keystone Innovation Zone. The institute features programs to annually educate and train up to 2,500 people, including biopharmaceutical professionals and bioprocessing engineering students, on how to produce potentially life-saving biotherapeutic drugs. The institute started out with eight employees and is expected to grow to 24 over the next three years.

The institute will also collaborate with area pharmaceutical companies and provide workforce training and certifications through regional educational partnerships. It has already forged partnerships with Janssen, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Wuxi Apptec along with Montgomery County and Bucks County community colleges. Jefferson expects the institute to facilitate its enrollment of 70 additional university students in bioprocessing engineering, from undergraduate through doctorate levels. The institute was established in partnership with the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), which is based in Dublin, Ireland. The institute, according to Jefferson, is the first — and only — biopharmaceutical processing education and training institute in North America to be established in a partnership with NIBRT.

Developer: MRA Group