The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Scheme (OMERS) has made a second investment with the Crown Estate in a London real estate joint venture.
Oxford Properties, the pension plan’s real estate arm, and The Crown Estate are investing £145m (€202.6m) in their St James’s Market partnership in London’s West End district.
The investors will fund a 160,000 sq ft commercial block between St Albans Street and Haymarket.
Paul Brundage, executive vice-president and senior managing director at Oxford Properties Europe, said: “St James’s is an area of London we are very excited about, and the creation of a second joint venture with a like-minded strategic partner further provides us with the opportunity to realise our European strategy to invest in core markets and core assets alongside a development programme to enhance portfolio returns.”
The investment follows the firms’ creation of a £320m joint venture in 2013, when 150-year leasehold interests in two blocks between Regent Street and Haymarket were shared by the pair.
The Crown Estate kept the freehold and development and asset management of the scheme, which it will also do with the latest phase.
The firms said works continue on the 260,000 sq ft scheme, including retail, restaurant and offices, with completion due next year.
