UK
Legal & General’s senior living business, Inspired Villages, has acquired a 12-acre site in Caddington, Bedfordshire, for a retirement community.
The site has outline planning permission to develop 200 specialist age-appropriate homes, with an expected gross development value of £120 million on completion.
The new retirement community scheme will see £90 million invested into the local economy, creating more than 70 construction jobs per annum over its six-year build period, and 32 permanent jobs.
The Caddington site acquisition brings the Inspired Villages development pipeline to 2,500 homes across the UK in the next six years. Together, these retirement community schemes will create around 1,000 construction jobs per annum, and up to 640 permanent jobs once the retirement communities are complete and operational.
Retirement community total set to rise 50% in 20 years
Currently, there are more than 12million over-65s in the UK and this retirement community figure is expected to increase by 50% over the next 20 years.
With only 7,000 units being delivered to market each year, the disparity between supply and demand in the retirement community is vast.
Inspired Villages, with its partner Legal & General, has ambitions to revolutionise the later living offer in the UK and address this chronic shortfall. To meet these retirement community targets, Inspired Villages has grown exponentially over the past two years; the number of employees has increased from 20 to more than 300, with capital commitments of half a billion pounds across its villages.
When complete, the Caddington scheme will contain a restaurant, café, wellness centre (comprising a swimming pool, fitness studio and gym), library and cinema room. In keeping with Inspired Villages’ ethos of creating communities in and around its villages, many of these facilities will be available to both residents and the local community.
Neal Dale, Development Director at Inspired Villages Group, says, “It is fantastic that Central Bedfordshire Council has recognised the urgent need for more age-appropriate housing for the over 65s and approved our plans for a retirement village in Caddington.
High-quality later living
“Our retirement community model focuses on holistic wellbeing, which means this scheme will offer a high quality later living experience that will help older people live healthy, independent lives for longer. We have worked alongside the land owner over the last 18 months in achieving this milestone and now look forward to progressing matters to a start on site early next year.
“We would like to thank all of those that have engaged in the planning process, helped shape our proposal and shown support for our scheme.”
Phil Bayliss, CEO of Later Living at Legal & General, says,“We have an extraordinary opportunity to deliver homes and support a lifestyle that will really change the way we age in the UK. Our focus is not solely about how to extend lifespan and more about how we can extend our health span, improving the quality of life we already have.
“This acquisition follows Inspired Villages planning consent, received last week, to develop one of the UK’s largest retirement communities in Surrey.
“As Inspired Villages continues to expand, it will play a key role in providing high quality later living housing to the UK through which we can address the social and economic issues linked to the UK’s ageing population.
“This is an exceptional match for Legal & General’s long term capital. Our current pipeline is testament to the business’ commitment to invest through and beyond the Covid-19 crisis. In helping our residents live in good health for longer, we continue help to take some of the strain off the NHS and social care system that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.”
Paris CBD office bought
FRANCE
German investment specialist AEW has bought an office complex in the Paris Central Business District.
It was acquired on behalf of a separate mandate with the German public pension fund, Rheinische Versorgungskassen (RVK), from the German real estate investment company, HANSAINVEST Real Assets.
The complex features a nine-storey property on Rue Jouffroy d’Abbans and a six-storey building on Rue de Prony. It built in the 19th century and redeveloped in the second half of the 20th century.
Fully-let
It provides 3,470 square meters of retail and office space. The retail space is let to Carrefour City and the office space is fully let to seven tenants from a well-diversified range of sectors.
The asset is in a sought after location in the 17th district, close to the exclusive residential area around the Parc Monceau. It is near the Wagram and Monceau metro stations as well as the Pereiere suburban train line.
This is the first transaction for the
separate account mandate, which has a core investment strategy focused on
French office and retail assets and was awarded to AEW in December 2019
following a competitive tender process. The mandate has a total investment
capacity of €250 million-€300 million, including leverage of between 40-45 per cent.
Marc Langenbach, Head of Funds & Separate Accounts Germany, at AEW says,”This
acquisition marks our first for RVK and is strongly aligned to the mandate’s
strategy of investing in high quality core investments in Paris. AEW was
selected by RVK due to the strength of our network in France, as well as our
expertise across our pan-European platform. We continue to monitor a pipeline
of opportunities as we look to grow the portfolio in Paris, where we are
confident in the long term outlook for one of Europe’s leading cities.”
AEW was advised by Prud’homme & Baum, BG2V, Elan, Burgeap and Ernst &
Young. CBRE France and LPA – CGR avocats acted for the vendor.
New sustainable office and training facility
THE NETHERLANDS
Dutch stock listed company Aalberts N.V. together with GARBE Industrial Real Estate (GARBE) has invested €50 million in a new sustainable manufacturing, distribution, office and training center.
The facility is for its Aalberts hydronic flow control activity in Almere, the Netherlands.
The 53,000 square meter eco-friendly facility will enable Aalberts hydronic flow control to even better service its customers, streamline and improve production and supply chain and gain more efficiency and growth.
The new location in Almere will facilitate the production of innovative pressurisation and storage technology for the eco-friendly building market.
The Aalberts hydronic flow control academy will be used to train partners, installers and building owners in achieving the highest level of energy efficiency in buildings.
GARBE is a leading developer, owner and real estate investment manager with over €5 billion assets under management, 10 offices in Europe and more than 200 employees.
The company has been established for over 50 years, is privately owned and predominantly based in Germany. GARBE is active in the complete value chain (development, acquisition & disposition and fund, asset and property management) in the sectors residential, office, retail and logistic/industrial. The development of this project is managed from the Dutch Office of GARBE, in Amsterdam.
Aalberts N.V. engineers mission-critical technologies for ground-breaking industries and everyday life. Aalberts focuses on sustainable impact and unique market positions in eco-friendly buildings, sustainable transportation, semicon efficiency and industrial niches. With more than 16,000 employees, Aalberts operates from approximately 70 business locations and 80 service locations in more than 50 countries.
