Nuveen Real Estate said on Monday that it has finalised its acquisition of cube berlin, a 17,500 m2 office asset in the heart of the German capital, following the completion of the development in February 2020.
The firm’s European Cities strategy committed to the project in December 2016 due to its excellent location, accessibility and commitment to the highest standards in sustainability and technology. The developer and vendor is listed Austrian property firm CA Immo, which invested around €100 mln in the building.
Construction of the asset was handled by the CA Immo construction subsidiary omniCon. The building was sold in a share deal for an undisclosed amount.
The asset is a fully digitalised ‘Smart Building’, which includes intelligent heating, cooling and lighting systems, as well as offering a tenant app that can be used to create room bookings and for internal communications. It has already achieved WiredScore ‘Platinum’ certification, one of the first assets in Germany to attain this, and is also expected to achieve a DGNB ‘Gold’ rating.
The development is located between the Parliament Quarter and the Hauptbahnhof, next to the River Spree. This is part of a long-term regeneration area called ‘Europacity’. The asset is 100% pre-let, to tenants including Deutsche Bahn, Gleiss Lutz and RA Micro.
The Nuveen European Cities strategy now owns 14 assets spanning retail, office and logistics across key, gateway cities in Europe with a total gross asset value of €2 bn.
‘Office supply in Berlin has been constrained in recent years, particularly for Grade-A space, so this new development makes a welcome addition. The finished asset provides what we believe to be one of the smartest office buildings in Berlin and provides much-needed modern office space in the city,’ commented Liz Sworn, fund manager, Nuveen Real Estate.
Nuveen Real Estate’s European Cities strategy forms part of the firm’s global resilient series, which focuses on investing in high-quality assets in ‘future-proof’ cities that are well-positioned in terms of long-term structural trends, including demographic change, urbanisation and technology and in doing so, possibly delivers attractive, risk-adjusted returns to investors.
As part of this series, Nuveen Real Estate also manages an Asia Pacific strategy, as well as four sector-specific strategies in the US. Across its global resilient series, the firm manages over $5 bn of assets in over 35 leading resilient cities globally.
Nuveen Real Estate was advised by Dentons (debt financing), Allen & Overy (legal, tax and structuring), EY (financial) and Apleona and KVL (technical).
