CLEVELAND – Forest City Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: FCEA and FCEB) today announced groundbreaking for a life sciences research facility at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Forest City, through its Boston-based University Bioscience & Technology Group, is acting as developer for the 123,000-square-foot facility. Forest City will have an option to purchase the project, which involves redevelopment of a 1940s-era industrial facility. The project is scheduled to open in fall 2004. It is Forest City’s first biotechnology-related development opportunity outside of the Boston market, where the Company has been the master developer of University Park at MIT, one of the nation’s largest and most successful biotechnology office parks.

The new facility will house the University of Pennsylvania’s translational research program. The research is being initiated by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with the University of Pennsylvania and NIH-funded researchers,” said Charles A. Ratner, president and chief executive officer of Forest City Enterprises, Inc. “It also allows us to continue to demonstrate and expand our experience in developing laboratory and office space to meet the exacting demands of the biotechnology industry.”

“The eastern expansion of Penn’s campus plan is creating tremendous opportunities for economic development for the university and the Philadelphia region,” said Omar Blaik, senior vice president of facilities and real estate services at Penn. “This translational research project is an excellent example of adapting an older industrial structure into a modern facility for applied medical research. We are thrilled to be working with Forest City in making this key development a reality.”

In 2001, the University of Pennsylvania issued its Campus Development Plan, a long-term strategy for controlled, consistent development of the Penn campus to assure the University’s physical environment fulfills the needs of its academic mission.

The University of Pennsylvania project reflects Forest City’s focus on its core markets. In Philadelphia, Forest City has interests in 1,227 apartment units, including the adaptive re-use/historic preservation of the Drake Tower and the Lofts at 1835 Arch. Forest City recently broke ground on the 540,000-square-foot Quartermaster Plaza retail center, a former military facility that is being redeveloped into the largest retail project to occur in Philadelphia in recent years. 

University Park at MIT is located on a 27-acre site adjacent to the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Under development by Forest City since 1985, the 27-acre site currently has 1.5 million square feet of office and lab space, 478 residential units, 210 hotel rooms and conference center and 2,700 parking spaces.

About Forest City Enterprises

Forest City Enterprises, Inc. is a $5.9 billion NYSE-listed real estate company headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The Company is principally engaged in the ownership, development, acquisition and management of commercial and residential real estate throughout the United States. The Company’s portfolio includes interests in retail centers, apartment communities, office buildings and hotels in 20 states and the District of Columbia.  For more information, see www.forestcity.net and www.fceboston.com.

About the University of Pennsylvania

Founded in 1754 by Benjamin Franklin the University of Pennsylvania is a highly selective Ivy League University with a history of innovation in interdisciplinary education and scholarship, and a world-class research institution. Consistently ranked among the top five universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey, Penn is home to a diverse undergraduate student body of nearly 10,000, and another 10,000 students enrolled in Penn’s 12 graduate and professional schools, which are national leaders in their fields, including the Wharton School and School of Medicine. Research at Penn is a substantial and esteemed enterprise with a budget of more than half a billion dollars annually, and research activities make Penn a nationally ranked research university.

Safe Harbor Language

Statements made in this news release that state the Company or management’s intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. It is important to note that the Company’s actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, real estate development and investment risks, economic conditions in the Company’s target markets, reliance on major tenants, the impact of terrorist acts, the Company’s substantial leverage and the ability to service debt, guarantees under the Company’s credit facility, changes in interest rates, continued availability of tax-exempt government financing, the sustainability of substantial operations at the subsidiary level, significant geographic concentration, illiquidity of real estate investments, dependence on rental income from real property, conflicts of interest, competition, potential liability from syndicated properties, effects of uninsured loss, environmental liabilities, partnership risks, litigation risks, and other risk factors as disclosed from time to time in the Company’s SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2003.