Legal & General’s Build to Rent Fund (BTR Fund) and Access Development Partnership with Dutch pension fund PGGM have agreed the funding of a £100 mln (€111 mln) development site at Hockley Mills, within the Jewellery Quarter Conservation Area in Birmingham town centre.
Marking the 16th BTR site and second in Birmingham for the Legal & General BTR Fund, the Hockley Mills development takes its total investment in the sector to £2.1 bn.
Located centrally in one of the most sought after residential districts in the West Midlands and adjacent to both rail and tram links, the Hockley Mills scheme will deliver 395 apartments; one, two and three bedroom, alongside a new entrance to the Jewellery Quarter train station, 116 car parking spaces and 28,000 sq ft of flexible commercial space for retail, leisure and offices.
‘In the space of the last few years, the BTR sector has really come into its own,’ said Dan Batterton, denior fund manager, BTR, LGIM Real Assets. ‘It has cemented its position in the UK as an asset class and successfully evolved away from the private rented sector. Showing its resilience and relative counter cyclical nature of the residential sector, BTR has remained largely unaffected throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as occupancy, rent collection and demand has remained high.’
‘During periods of economic stress, residential assets are seen as extremely attractive by investors, in part due to both their resilience and counter-cyclical rental performance. Our view remains that, long term, the current Covid-19 crisis may well act as a catalyst for an acceleration of institutional capital into the UK’s residential investment sector,’ added Hannah Badger, associate in the Residential Capital Markets team at Knight Frank, which advised Legal & General.
Sir Robert McAlpine will act as the developer at Hockley Mills.
