Marylebone Warwick Balfour has snapped up Richardson Developments’ Star City leisure scheme in Birmingham for £80m. MWB has bought the development, billed as Europe’s largest leisure scheme, on behalf of its second leisure fund, set up in April this year.
The fund attracted £87m of equity from eight institutional investors including Hermes, Sun Life of Canada and CIN La Salle. It has a total of around £250m to spend on UK leisure parks and is thought to be close to buying Burford’s O2 leisure scheme on the Finchley Road, NW3.
The 36,231 sq m (390,000 sq ft) Star City is being jointly developed by Richardson Developments and Tarmac at a 10ha (25 acre) site close to Spaghetti Junction alongside the M6. It is due for completion in 2000. The park is anchored by a 30-screen Warner Village multiplex and is expected to generate a total rent of around £5.5m pa .
Richard Ellis and Berwin Leighton acted for the fund. Phoenix Beard, Lunson Mitchenall and Eversheds represented the developers.
MWB’s first leisure fund invested around £135m in UK leisure parks.
EGi News 22/12/98
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