ING Real Estate offloads UK development plots

ING Bank's real estate sell-off vehicle has disposed of two inner-city development plots in the UK cities of Chester en Maidenhead.

The disposals in early January were carried out by ING Real Estate & Other, which was established by the Dutch bank to manage, help with restructuring and ultimately wind down the bank's real estate investment and development activities.

ING Real Estate Development (ING RED) was for several years one of the largest inner-city property developers in Europe.

The first transaction involved the sale of an existing 10,000 m2 shopping centre and surrounding land in the historic centre of Chester to Cheshire West & Chester Council. ING RED had acquired the asset and land as part of the plan for a large-scale Chester North redevelopment project to be carried out by ING RED and Chester's local authority.

The Maidenhead project site comprises a mixed-use complex of offices, retail and apartments with surrounding land, which ING RED had originally acquired for the redevelopment of the centre of the city. The project was sold to the Norwegian family-owned property business, Smedvig Eiendom.

ING Real Estate & Other said the two sales were major steps towards completing the sell-off of the bank's real estate development programme in the UK.