Greystar Real Estate Partners is acquiring a 435-bed student housing site in Spain’s capital city from TPG and Urbania for an undisclosed amount.
The real estate manager has agreed to buy the site at the Madrid Autonomous University’s Cantoblanco Campus in Madrid to develop a purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) project expected to be operational by the 2025/26 academic year.
The completed asset will operate under Greystar’s pan-European brand Canvas, as Canvas Madrid.
The Canvas brand now has 12 operational assets and a further seven in the pipeline, comprising more than 9,000 beds in university cities across the UK, Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain.
The transaction marks Greystar’s return to the PBSA sector in Spain following the sale of the RESA platform in August 2022.
Greystar said the acquisition underscores the firm’s belief in the Spanish PBSA market and its confidence in Madrid’s enduring demand fundamentals, despite the limited pipeline caused by the shortage of privately managed land.
Rafael Fernández-Villaverde, senior investment director for southern Europe at Greystar, said: “The acquisition of a fully-licensed, on-campus PBSA site in a highly sought-after but under-supplied area presented the perfect opportunity for us to start rebuilding our PBSA platform in Spain under the Canvas brand.
“In little over a year, we have achieved our goal of creating a truly pan-European PBSA brand with Canvas quickly becoming synonymous with not only high-quality accommodation and amenities but a focus on providing a service that puts our resident experience and wellbeing at its heart.”
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