A LANDMARK housing development on the site of the former Strathclyde Police headquarters on Pitt Street in Glasgow has taken another step forward with the securing of £80 million of funding by the investors behind the “Holland Park” scheme.
Apache Capital Partners and Chicago-based real-estate investment management firm Harrison Street have secured the debt funding to finance the construction of Moda Living’s build-to-rent neighbourhood on the site, comprising 433 homes.
The four-year debt facility provided by BentallGreenOak will fund the “construction and stabilisation of Holland Park”, the partners said.
The Holland Park development, which will see the former Strathclyde Police headquarters on Pitt Street replaced by four apartment blocks providing 433 homes for rent.
The project will be delivered and managed “over a long-term horizon” by Moda Living, a UK investor, developer and operator in the build-to-rent housing sector.
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Demolition works on the site were completed last March. The construction project is due to be completed in late 2023.
The project is the fifth in a build-to-rent joint venture between London-based real-estate investor and developer Apache Capital, which is backed by NFU Mutual, and Harrison Street.
In addition to Holland Park in Glasgow, current Moda neighbourhoods being funded by the joint venture include The Lexington in Liverpool, The Mercian in Birmingham, New York Square in Leeds, and Springside in Edinburgh, representing a total of 2,322 homes.
Apache Capital and Moda Living purchased the Holland Park site in October 2016.
As well as new homes, Holland Park will feature15,000 sq ft of “internal amenities”, including communal lounges and “health and wellbeing zones”. The development will also include 31,000 sq ft of outdoor amenity space.
Residents will have access to “landscaped terraces overlooking the Glasgow skyline”, the partners behind the project noted. They added that mixed commercial and leisure space would be provided on the ground floor, including cafes, bars, restaurants and co-working facilities.
John Dunkerley, co-founder and CEO at Apache Capital Partners said: “The backing of one of the world’s leading real estate investment managers for our Holland Park scheme with Moda Living highlights lenders’ growing comfort with build-to-rent as an asset class.
“Covid-19 has revealed the vulnerability of traditional property investments such as retail and offices to disruption. As a result, lenders, together with institutional investors such as pension funds and insurers, are looking to grow their exposure to alternative asset classes like residential for rent.”
Paul Bashir, chief executive officer of Harrison Street’s European business, said: “Glasgow is an attractive Scottish city with large banking, insurance, energy and telecommunications employers, and its growing population needs high-quality rental housing options. We are pleased with the support from leading international real estate investment manager, BentallGreenOak to build upon our existing partnership.
“Harrison Street looks forward to completing Holland Park with world-class partners, Apache and Moda and continuing to identify new opportunities for top-tier BTR assets with high-quality amenities in strategic markets.”
Jim Blakemore, global head of debt at BentallGreenOak, said: “Against the backdrop of pandemic-related uncertainty we are seeing across the real estate market, build-to-rent continues to perform well, and we are delighted to be supporting a best-in-class product that Apache Capital, Harrison Street, and Moda Living have created.
“We see a huge amount of opportunity across living real estate and hotels, and believe that demand for agile and relationship-driven debt partners will only grow."
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