ITALY
Pan-European hotel operator, developer and investor, The Student Hotel (TSH) has bought land for a new urban campus regeneration project in Turin.
The 30,000 square metre site on the northern edge of the centre of Turin has been bought from the Metropolitan City of Turin. The project is set to open in 2023.
The Turin development site is a plot of land stretching over the equivalent of four football fields located adjacent to the Ponte Mosca bridge in the Aurora district. It is a five-minute walk from the central Porta Palazzo and 10 minutes from the city’s university.
The new campus will provide much-needed student and hotel accommodation, office and educational facilities for Turin and TSH aims to create a 24-hour mixed-use destination where people can learn, stay, work and play.
The destination will be anchored by TSH Turin, which will encompass some 525 rooms, a 2,000 square metre Collab, TSH’s co-working hub and extensive public spaces. The plans include an auditorium with the potential to become a cinema at night and a rooftop bar with swimming pool and stunning views of the Alps, open to the neighbouring community. The project will also see the creation of a new urban park for the city and include a state-of-the-art 3,000 square metre building for the IAAD Design University.
TSH will invest an estimated €65 million in the development, one of its largest European urban regeneration projects and the first to incorporate a purpose-built educational facility, for the IAAD Design University.
Leading international investor
TSH’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Charlie McGregor, says, “TSH has become the leading international investor in the rapidly expanding coliving and coworking market across Italy, in a remarkably short space of time, because of the successful partnerships forged with local municipalities to deliver its award-winning mixed-use model that connects local and international communities.
“Our blended business model, which brings together an investor, developer and operator, allows us to take a long-term view, adopt new approaches to development as well as offer best-in-class services to all our guests and become a thriving community hub for cities.”
The Mayor of Turin, says, “We welcome TSH’s plans for the development of a new ‘The Student Hotel’ campus in Turin. It is an important step towards the regeneration of the Ponte Mosca site near the historic city centre and will materially increase the quality and quantity of the services on offer for students, tourists and people coming to Turin to work for short periods of time.”
Turin, Italy’s fourth-largest city, will be TSH’s sixth project in the Italian market, bringing its total development pipeline there to around €400 million. With more projects planned, TSH expects to invest around €1billion in Italy by 2025.
TSH Florence opened in June 2018 and it has two additional developments in the city. TSH Bologna is to open in September 2020 and the company also has a project underway in Rome. By 2023, TSH will have opened 2,500 rooms and redeveloped more than 190,000 square metres of urban regeneration across Italy.
TSH has appointed Milan-based Studio Tectoo as architects for the project and was advised on the transaction by Dentons, Italsocotec, Studio Bossolono and Pirola Pennuto Zei & Associati.
Two Rotterdam office buildings acquired
THE NETHERLANDS
Monarch Alternative Capital LP and CK Capital Partners have acquired the Lotus C+E office buildings in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The buildings at the George Hintzenweg 77 & 89 in Rotterdam, which belonged to ARC Real Estate Partners, have been bought on behalf of one of their Investors.
The office buildings include a lettable floor area of 17,710 square meters and 466 parking spaces. They were completed in 2008 and have a Label A energy efficiency rating.
Monarch, together with CK as its local operating partner, invests in well-located office assets near key transport hubs across the Netherlands. It seeks to partner with existing and new tenants to improve the infrastructure, energy efficiency and tenant experience of the assets it acquires. Since it was formed in 2014, the platform has acquired 10 buildings. It currently owns six buildings in various cities across the Netherlands including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
Monarch and CK Capital were advised by JLL and Loyens & Loeff. CK Capital Partners will be responsible for the ongoing asset management of the two buildings.
Fund purchased fully-let office building in Frankfurt
GERMANY
KanAm Grund Group has purchased the fully-let Kontorhaus office building in Frankfurt
The six-floor office building at Mainzer Landstrasse 181, which offers about 6,400 square metres of space, has been bought for one of its special real estate funds. The purchase price has not been revealed.
The building has around 6,400 square metres of space. Deutsche Bahn is the main tenant. It also houses a large doctors’ surgery specializing in radiology and nuclear medicine and a fast food restaurant.
Kontorhaus is in the Gallus district. It has six floors above ground and underground parking facilities for 34 cars plus additional car parking facilities outside.
It has been agreed to keep the sales price confidential. Westbrook Partners is the seller of the property. The transaction was accompanied by Savills.
The KanAm Grund Group thus covers a huge breadth of risk classes with funds following strategies from Core, Core+ and Value Add to Opportunistic. The latest special real estate fund in this family is the KanAm Grund European Cities KI, which has this year already purchased an office building in Lyon.
Sale of mixed-use development in regeneration area
THE NETHERLANDS
International real estate firm, Hines, has acquired Pontkade Phase 3, a mixed-use residential and office development in Amsterdam.
The development, in the NDSM-West regeneration area, has been bought on behalf of the Hines Pan-European Core Fund (HECF).
Hines will forward fund the mixed-use development, which will consist of 208 apartments for rent, alongside 1,600 square metres of office space and 800 square metres of ground floor commercial space for retail use.
Designed by international architecture firm Moke, Pontkade Phase 3 features an 18-story residential tower and a seven-story office building. The project is expected to be complete by the end of 2022.
Amsterdam’s NDSM is a large area of regeneration around the former shipping docks in the North of the city. Several major developments have already been completed, including the head office of retailer HEMA and an enhanced marina, alongside new homes, restaurants and bars. The world’s largest street art museum will open in the next few months and, on completion in 2028, the NDSM area will provide around 5,000 homes.
HECF has acquired the site from BMB ontwikkeling, part of construction group VolkerWessels, and Reggeborgh Vastgoed, a private investment company. On behalf of VolkerWessels, BMB ontwikkeling is the lead developer in the NDSM regeneration area.
The Pontkade Phase 3 acquisition represents the first PRS investment by HECF and further residential investments are expected to complete in the coming months.
Expanding residential investment
Peter Epping, senior managing director and HECF fund manager at Hines, says, “Our investment underlines our strategy of targeting high-quality PRS assets and build-to-rent projects, alongside traditional Core assets, within the HECF. Alongside the growth of our office and logistics investments, it is a key target to expand our residential invest program in other key European cities with good prospects for long-term rental growth.”
Andy Smith, managing director and country head for The Netherlands at Hines, said, “Amsterdam Noord and the NDSM area is a dynamic new place to live, with high-quality shops, bars and restaurants, and with significant further development in the pipeline. The Pontkade Phase 3 site benefits from strong transport connections, including easy access to Amsterdam’s central station, and will be highly attractive to Amsterdam’s growing rental population.”
Hines is a privately owned global real estate investment firm founded in 1957 with a presence in 219 cities in 23 countries. Hines has approximately $124.3 billion of assets under management, including $63.8 billion for which Hines provides fiduciary investment management services, and $60.5 billion for which Hines provides third-party property-level services. The firm has 148 developments currently underway around the world.
The Hines Pan-European Core Fund was set up in 2006 with the aim of providing investors with a resilient income profile derived from a diversified portfolio of high-quality assets located in inner-city locations across major European cities.
Office project sale agreed
LUXEMBOURG
BNP Paribas REIM has agreed with Grossfeld PAP on the sale of the Kockelscheuer office project in Luxembourg.
The property is expected to be delivered in Q1 2022 and aims at granting a BREEAM Excellent green certification. The five-storey office building features around 4,090 square metres of office lettable area fully let under a firm 12-year lease agreement.
The sale is on behalf of BNP Paribas REIM’s Next Estate Income Fund III (NEIF III), managed by BNP Paribas REIM Luxembourg.
Kockelscheuer is in the Cloche d’Or district of Luxembourg. This sub-market is a recent multi-use area benefiting from approx. 300,000 square metres of potential office development and hosting already many major services players. The tramway passing through the Gare Centrale will connect the area at the end of 2022.
Laurent Boissin, Fund Advisor of the NEIF funds says, “Kockelscheuer is perfectly in line with the Fund strategy focusing on green certified recent office buildings located in the most liquid markets in the Eurozone. The 12-year lease agreement matches our investors’ needs for stable and long term income. NEIF III has now allocated close to EUR 550 million investments through eight projects across four countries.”
Prime investment location
For Grossfeld PAP this transaction further consolidates the new Cloche d’Or neighbourhood as a prime investment grade location. The area includes the adjacent Cloche d’Or shopping centre, major housing developments, a school and other public amenities such as the city’s largest park which will be finalized by the end of 2021.
The Open-ended office fund, NEIF III provides a strong diversification in the Eurozone countries to international institutional investors. The fund has already secured one transaction in France, four in German top cities, two in Spain and one in Luxembourg.
Grossfeld PAP SA SICAV-RAIF is a long-standing joint venture between Promobe (Luxemburg) and Extensa Group (Belgium) that initiated and develops the Cloche d’Or project as a strategic extension of the City of Luxemburg, creating a new and vibrant living and working city quarter.
