Residential Land has paid £100m for a prime residential rental block in the heart of Mayfair, W1.
The company’s Prime London Ventures Partnership, a subsidiary of its joint venture with Ivanhoè Cambridge, has bought 39 Hill Street, an unbroken freehold building comprising 65 one- and two-bedroom flats.
Residential Land estimates the block has the potential to provide a rent roll of as much as £6m after it has been refurbished.
Chief executive Bruce Ritchie said he had been eyeing a deal to buy the site for 10 years and he intends to transform the block into “the Claridge’s of residential in Mayfair”.
Most of the flats were sold by HSP, with five other flats in the development owned by individual vendors.
Smaller rental units, particularly in an unbroken block, are rare in prime central London.
Ritchie said: “The departure for us is that we have paid £3,000 per sq ft for it and that is more than our self-imposed limit, but the rarity of the building and the opportunity justifies the expense.”
Built in 1935, the 40,000 sq ft building originally comprised 94 studio flats. There is also a restaurant on the ground floor with a 4,000 sq ft garden.
Residential Land expects to spend the next two to three years refurbishing the building.
Residential Land and Ivanhoè have completed more
than £400m in acquisitions since announcing the creation of a new £650m fund in February.
The partnership now has a portfolio of more than 900 central London homes with a combined value of £1.3bn.
