Legal & General is investing £35m (€39.1m) in Wrenbridge Sport and the City of York Council’s development of the Vangarde leisure scheme in York, northeast England.
L&G which is making the investment on behalf of its Leisure Fund, said it will build a new leisure and retail scheme at the Vangarde development.
The development will comprise a new 13 screen IMAX 50,000sqft cinema which has been pre-let to Cineworld, as well as various restaurants and retail units.
The leisure and retail scheme forms part of the wider regeneration of the Vangarde development which Wrenbridge Sport in a consortium with the City of York Council and Greenwich Leisure have been working on for the past four years.
Wrenbridge Sport is a specialist business established by Wrenbridge to focus on the sport and leisure related sector.
In addition to L&G’s investment, the wider scheme includes the construction of a new 8,000 seat stadium, a leisure complex community hub comprising sports hall, 25 metre swimming pool, gym, NHS facilities and outdoor artificial pitches, as well as further retail and restaurant units.
Andrew Ferguson, senior fund manager at L&G Investment Management Real Assets, said: “Good-quality leisure developments in the UK are still relatively rare. The chance to fund a brand new scheme, anchored by Cineworld, in an important growth city such as York is a great opportunity for the Leisure Fund.
”This investment is also another example of how we can unlock development opportunities through our private capital by working in partnership with existing developers and with a proactive and collaborative local authority.”
Legal & General has invested over £12bn into UK direct investments and urban regeneration projects to date, with a commitment to invest £15bn.
