Brookfield has made its first investment in the student accommodation sector in Australia.

Brookfield has partnered with Sydney-based property firm Citiplan to acquire a purpose-built student accommodation development site directly opposite the University of Melbourne in central Melbourne.

It is the first of what Brookfield hopes will kick off a A$500m (€312.3m) development pipeline.

Brookfield head of real estate investments, Ruban Kaneshamoorthy, told IPE Real Assets: “We expect to have a development portfolio of greater than A$50m. We are targetting key gateway locations around Australia and New Zealand, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and possibly Perth.”

The first site, offering 400 beds, wasn’t due to open its doors until semester two 2025, Kaneshamoorthy said, and this gave a prolonged timeframe for COVID recovery.

The joint venture will build on Brookfield’s US$7.4bn global student accommodation business, with 197 assets containing over 55,000 beds across Europe and the US, including businesses Scion Group and Student Roost.

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