IGI-Bakar Labs Building at UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley put a shovel in the ground on July 1, 2026 for the Innovative Genomics Institute-Bakar Labs building, a wet-lab complex meant to keep CRISPR companies in Berkeley instead of watching them decamp for South San Francisco the moment they raise a Series A. Turner Construction is the builder. Weiss/Manfredi is lead design architect, with DGA as executive architect.

Project Scope

The building gives the Innovative Genomics Institute and Bakar Labs laboratory, research, and collaboration space under one roof. The programmatic idea is a ladder: academic genome-engineering research at one end, incubator benches in the middle, and graduated space for companies that have outgrown a startup suite but aren’t ready to sign a 10-year lease elsewhere.

That ladder is harder to build than it reads. Incubator wet labs need flexible fume-hood and utility infrastructure that can be reconfigured every few quarters, while institute research space wants stability and vibration criteria. Getting both into one structure without over-engineering the whole thing is the design problem.

Why It Matters

Berkeley invented modern CRISPR and then spent a decade exporting the companies. Bakar Labs was the first serious attempt to fix that, and it filled up. The new building is the second move, and it anchors what the campus is calling its Innovation Zone.

There is a broader read here too. University lab construction has been one of the few nonresidential segments holding up while warehouse and office starts slide, and life sciences real estate has bifurcated hard: purpose-built, sponsor-backed academic space is still getting financed, while speculative lab shells in second-tier markets are sitting empty. This project is firmly in the first category.

Project Team & Details