Two Danish pension funds have revealed separate real estate plans involving conversions of existing office and industrial space in Copenhagen, creating new offices, homes and a hotel.
PFA, which is the country’s biggest commercial pension fund, announced it has bought a property to the south-east of the city centre from industrial gases company AGA, a subsidiary of Germany’s Linde, in a sale-and-leaseback deal.
The commercial property, located on the northern end of the island of Amager, involves a 17,691sqm plot of land and a 3,747sqm building that has been occupied by AGA since the 1930s.
PFA says that starting in 2023, it plans to pull the existing building down and rebuild “New York-style” offices and flats, investing a sum in Danish kroner in the “high three-digit millions”.
No price for the property purchase was given.
Michael Bruhn, director of PFA’s real estate arm PFA Ejendomme, said: “Many former industrial areas of the capital are currently being developed in the direction of commercial space and homes, and as such are becoming integrated as natural parts of the city of Copenhagen.
“We have acquired a particularly well-located industrial property which we look forward to developing for the benefit of Copenhageners, the commercial sector and not least, our customers, for whom we expect to make a really good return out of this investment,” he said.
PFA bought the property located in the streets Uplandsgade and Vermlandsgade through its subsidiary PFA Blue Star Ejendomme.
Development will be undertaken in partnership with the Thylander Group, it said.
Separately, Denmark’s giant statutory pension fund ATP is in the early planning stages of a project to convert a large Copenhagen office block it owns into a luxury hotel.
The property, known as the “Desert Fort” (Ørkenfortet) and located on the edge of the Christianshavn district, has been occupied by Nordic financial group Nordea for the last few years, but the company is now in the process of moving out of the building.
Michael Nielsen, chief executive of ATP Real Estate told Danish news site Berlingske Business that the planning was at a relatively early stage, but that according to the idea currently on the table, a future hotel could have around 400 rooms.
A spokeswoman for ATP confirmed the news story, and said: “We are in dialogue with the City of Copenhagen municipality about the building but nothing is final yet.”
