There’s a new market hall and community center nestled within a bunch of labs and technology company offices in Boulder.

East & Co. opened on Thursday in the Flatiron Park campus to cater to the community of life science professionals who work out of Boulder’s tech hub, one of the top 10 life sciences tech markets in the nation, the owners of Flatiron Park announced in a news release.

The market features an all-day menu that rotates between breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a store with local goods, artisan products and pantry staples. It includes a lounge area with a fireplace, a game room, outdoor terrace, a casual cafe for morning brainstorms and restaurant seating for lunch meetings and evening dinners with potential investors.

It even has a cocktail lounge.

The opening comes as the life sciences real estate sector is becoming more competitive to attract technology companies as the region has seen a slowdown in demand for lab spaces.

Can creating a community-centric space help a tech campus like this give it an edge?

East & Co. was designed to support the “daily rhythm of the people who are coming to work throughout Flatiron Park,” said Jennifer Chavez, senior director of leasing at BioMed Realty.

Flatiron Park is a 1 million-square-foot technology and lab campus for tech, life sciences and quantum companies. It spans 15 acres with 24 buildings in an area north of Arapahoe Avenue and east of 55th Street.

It was acquired by BioMed Realty in 2022, a development company tied to Blackstone that specializes in biotech real estate, which committed at the time of purchase to investing $200 million toward upgrading the campus.

The Flatiron Park supports more than 1,200 workers, according to BioMed Realty.

Opening amid slower life sciences market

Boulder’s life sciences industry — like many other hubs in the nation — has been struggling with rising vacancy rates and a slowdown in lab construction.

In the first quarter of 2021, the Denver and Boulder metropolitan area’s vacancy rate was less than 6%, according to a report from commercial real estate firm CBRE. In the same period in 2026, it was nearly 13%.

Yet, the region hasn’t been hit as hard as the three largest life sciences markets of Boston, San Francisco and San Diego where vacancy rates are nearly 28%, 25% and 31%, respectively.

The construction pipeline for the Denver-Boulder region fell in the first quarter to 220,000 square feet and it’s expected to continue to shrink as the Element Research Center and the Pearl East Innovation Campus, fully pre-leased by Novo Nordisk, are set to be completed this quarter, according to CBRE.

There’s also been no new construction in the sector since late 2024.

On the bright side, CBRE said leasing momentum has picked up as venture capital funding in the region reached $205 million in the first quarter.

The rolling measurement tracking how much money has been raised over the last four quarters hit $511 million for the Denver-Boulder area, the highest amount raised in the region in the post-pandemic era, CBRE said, a good sign for the industry.

The region’s largest lease signing in the first three months of the year was at the Flatiron Park campus.

VitraVax, a Boulder-based vaccine technology company, converted its sublease and committed to a 31,000-square-foot space for the long term. The move affirmed the tech campus as a “preferred destination” for growing life science companies, CBRE said.

Recently, the campus also welcomed a new office for Apple and a quantum incubator led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Boulder still is a strong market because of Colorado’s strong employee base, proximity to national labs and interest from venture funding, Chavez said.

And it also has more than life sciences.

Diversifying tech companies

While the life sciences industry is facing its own headwinds, Chavez said the campus has seen strong demand from other tech sectors such as quantum, aerospace and defense.

“What we have found is a lot of the mission-critical infrastructure that we’re providing on a daily basis is suitable for many of the other industries outside of life sciences that we’re seeing in the Boulder area,” she said. “We remain very confident in regards to the market and are still seeing a ton of activity.”

When BioMed Realty bought the property, Chavez said, the new owners recognized there was a need to build a community and create a space to share ideas or meet with investors. It also saw demand to reposition some of its old buildings by upgrading them with more modern ventilation systems and creating new move-in-ready lab space.

East & Co. aims to not only connect the Flatiron Park campus community, but also the wider East Boulder tech world, she added.

‘In a class all by itself’

The new market hall has a partnership with the Boulder County Farmers Markets, where it will host some events and people can pick up produce from there. The owners partnered with Boulder-based restaurant company Working Title Food Group and East & Co.’s operations are managed by Boulder-based hospitality company EVG Hospitality.

The hall includes a rotating menu including Moe’s Bagels, a signature breakfast burrito, sandwiches using baguettes from Boulder-based bakery Kinship and Colorado grass-fed beef smash patties.

This is no ordinary office amenity center, Chavez said.

“What we really wanted to do is provide an elevated experience for our tenants,” she said. “We believe that the East & Co. offering is gonna be in a class all by itself.”