The Karlin Experience

“Karlin brought great creativity that we had not seen here, relative to campus development in Research Triangle Park (RTP). Because of their team’s insight and execution to create a true, interesting place to have office and lab space, Duke University took that space.

Most of the deals we had been offered had been just about space, not about making place. And Karlin’s vision was to make an entire place in the entire campus of innovation on a larger scale than what could be accomplished downtown. They made it an interesting enough place that people who had always thought of RTP campuses too far from campus now thought of it as a new place, and not so much an extension to campus.

It’s allowed Duke to think on a larger scale about the research that we perform and how we can interact with other companies off of our main campus. It’s also allowed us to think about commercializing some of our intellectual property more quickly.

Karlin has a very small decision tree. The people you speak with are the people that make the decisions, and that doesn’t happen in very many organizations at this scale. Usually, there are groups and committees that then report to groups and committees. In the case of Karlin, you speak with the principals, and the principals make quick decisions. That’s the difference.”

Karlin is a leader in the life sciences market. We recognized that the life science market could benefit greatly from a design-build approach rather than the traditional design-bid-build approach. It saves time, costs, and provides better quality and a better product for the customer.

They acquire assets that are really geared towards the life science market and their acquisition approach provides a lot of flexibility to the. Karlin’s buy-in on streamlined process and their lean construction and development allows us collectively move fast. Neither

organization is burdened by a heavy bureaucracy that may slow things down and drive inefficiencies, while still being able to deliver the quality and facilities that both of our customers expect.

It’s their lean development, their entrepreneurial mindset, their forward-thinking funding source and an ability to accept the ideas that their development team puts forward.

Karlin is really geared towards a solutions approach rather than a business-as-usual approach.

Karlin proposed a means of doing a new build at essentially the same timeline as the retrofit and that’s not something that we typically would have been able to do. It’s going to incorporate significant amounts of automation, robotics, material handling and data analytics from start to finish. And it’s going to be a significant step forward and innovation for Eli Lilly manufacturing.

At the end of the day, this makes a huge impact for our patients in getting those life-saving medicines to patients

with a high degree of quality at the time they need them. That’s what this facility is all about.

Karlin is leading all of the activities associated with developing the land and construction of the building shells around the campus. And they’re driving those activities, and in parallel, Eli Lilly is doing the process and equipment design, so that when the building gets ready, we can take over as soon as each one is ready. They bring creativity to the table.

Karlin has moved the needle in Research Triangle Park (RTP) and we’re very appreciative for their investment, their enthusiasm, their creativity, and their support of the community. They’re just a terrific group to work with.

What we’re finding is that students at these universities, their first choice is to stay local. And the companies are clearly very interested in the talent that was coming out of our local universities. Partners like Karlin really walk the walk and support initiatives that help our community, our society address societal problems.

Karlin was an early adopter. Karlin changed perceptions for companies about RTP at the moment that institutional capital and other companies were considering North Carolina.

Their timing was impeccable, and they attracted what is sometimes rare in the biotech market. They have been terrific partners. When we call on them, they step up.

A lot of real estate developers like to do business in a very traditional way, ground lease or master lease, and for Karlin, it’s finding the solution that works for their tenants and their partners. And that’s what we did with Austin FC. Without Matt Schwab’s commitment to finding a solution, Austin FC’s training facilities would not be at Parmer Austin and their entitlement deal with St. David’s would not have happened. 

Karlin is very fluid and flexible in how they can act, because they are well capitalized, and because of the way they’re structured. There is no bureaucracy and their decision-making is different than traditional real estate developers that have institutional investors, that have a consortium of partners in the deal.

Karlin does a deal, it’s just Karlin, and that allows them to be more effective and efficient in creating solutions for their clients. That enables them to make decisions quickly, allowing them to create better solutions. They were very creative when dealing with Austin FC.

Unequivocally, there is no doubt––given the commitment, the partnership and vision of Karlin––that Austin FC is going to have the best training facility complex and environment in all of Major League Soccer.

Matt Schwab and I have forged a truly unique partnership when Karlin acquired their first property here in Austin. It was a greenfield development that needed a vision. The evolution of the relationship really came about because as we were engaged, we learned how often we could really help our partners out, and do it in a way where we could create solutions that were more aligned with their needs going in, as opposed to kind of this battle between how landlords are structured internally versus what tenants are seeking.

With Karlin’s structure and their desire to create truly unique and interesting spaces, along with their discretionary capital, we were able to move forward quickly and create the foundation of the vision in a way that other investors would not have.

What I always communicate to tenants and their advisors is that the financial structure of Karlin is monolithic. They don’t have equity partners. Therefore, Karlin doesn’t base decisions on an internal rate of return model. They’re making the decisions on what is best for the tenant, the property and relationship. 

The relationship with Karlin has really become a living organism that all started with a first deal and an opportunity to create something special and It continues to grow and thrive.

“During my career, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to work with many different developers of all sorts, publicly traded to individual investors. I have found that working with the Karlin team to be a breath of fresh air. It gave us the opportunity to establish a good relationship and work collaboratively to get us to where we needed to be.

I have found Karlin to be forward-thinking, and not constrained by the normal and. I’ve enjoyed the relationship. I find them to be very open, collaborative, and honest.

The know-how to get the ball across the goal line. They work to get the right team in place, which I find critical. They don’t try to shirk their responsibilities. They actually stand up when there’s a mistake and work collaboratively finding ways of improving it.”

Shattuck Labs is a relatively new biotechnology company, founded in 2016 that grew from two to 20 in less than a year.. We quickly outgrew an incubator space and started looking elsewhere for a place where we could grow. 

The first thing that attracted us to the PARMER Innovation Center space that Karlin was developing, was that they had a huge footprint and the vision to create an ecosystem. It wasn’t just about bringing companies in close proximity to one another, it’s providing open spaces for the employees of those companies to congregate, and get to know one another, and create a live work environment. They delivered on that vision.

When folks come to see it, it’s exciting. There’s a huge gym, there’s beautiful space outside, there’s Wi-Fi everywhere. If you want to have meetings inside or

outside, you just do what suits you. From a hiring perspective, the promise of that has been a huge benefit. You’re not just cooped up in your office all day like you are in many other places.

In both phases of our build out, the project has completed exactly on time, with great quality. 

There are many similar developers where the entire process is just about hitting a number on the per square foot contract. Sure, that’s the business these folks are in, that’s important to everybody, but I haven’t worked with another developer that has reinvested back into the experience of what they’re trying to create the way that Karlin has.