Stem Cell Move

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s agency for funding stem cell projects, is abandoning San Francisco and moving to more affordable digs across the bay. The agency had a 20,000-square-foot rent-free space in Mission Bay for a decade courtesy of the City of San Francisco, which considered having the institute here a triumph. The deal expires in November, and agency leaders found that equivalent space in the city would cost about $1.5 million a year, while the same amount in Oakland will cost less than half of that.