Image courtesy of HYM Investment Group

HYM Investment Group is seeking to attract R&D and biomanufacturing in the first phase of the 5.7 million-square-foor Suffolk Downs redevelopment on the Revere portion of the 161-acre property.

The Boston-based developer plans to break ground this year on a 500,000-square-foot office-lab and biomanufacturing building on a parcel that was previously approved for housing. The facility would include two lower floors of biomanufacturing, two floors of R&D space and an upper level of office and vivarium research space.

“We can believe can deliver [the life science component] by 2023, which is a really important aspect of speed-to-market for a life science building,” HYM Managing Director Thomas O’Brien said in a presentation to Revere city councilors.

Developers are scrambling to satisfy the life science industry’s spiraling demand for space as investors pour billions into the Bay State industry cluster. Approximately 18 million square feet of lab space is set to deliver in 2023, according to data by Colliers International presented at a NAIOP Massachusetts forum this week.

“Life science companies are looking for places for high-end manufacturing of very specific kinds of pharmaceutical products,” O’Brien said. “We think that site at Suffolk Downs can be the place for exactly that kind of use.”

Developers in Burlington and Marlborough recently announced plans for drug production facilities, following similar projects in Worcester and the state-run Devens business park.

The 33 former horse barns were demolished at Suffolk Downs last winter and site work has begun, with the first construction to take place near the MBTA’s Beachmont station.

Revere officials have sought to tap into the region’s life science boom in recent years. After the new owners of New England Confectionery Co. closed the American Legion Highway production facility in 2018, Revere city councilors rezoned the property for a variety of uses including robotics and life science. In 2019, the new property owners signed a deal with Amazon for an 800,000-square-foot distribution center.

As now proposed, the first phase of Suffolk Downs’ Revere section would total 1.75 million square feet. Other portions of the buildout would include 1.1 million square feet of housing, a 73,900-square-foot hotel, a 43,870-square-foot office building and 104,340 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

Construction of the hotel is unlikely to begin in 2021 because of the lingering travel downturn, O’Brien said.

Editor’s note: This report has been updated to correct the square-footage of the life science building.