Two prime London residential development opportunities have been put up for sale with the first big administration of the cycle and the exit of private equity.
The sales are an indication of the acceptance of the slowdown in the prime central London market and the need to move forward.
The Cleveland, Dukelease’s development on Cleveland Street, W1, is being marketed by CBRE and Savills.
It was bought with funding partner Starwood Capital Europe, which has prompted the sale. The scheme has planning permission for 105 homes, 15 of which are affordable.
The vendors are seeking around £35m for the site, which was bought in 2012 before receiving planning consent in 2015. A blended value of £2,000 per sq ft for the 82,200 sq ft of private and 9,400 of affordable homes equates to a GDV in excess of £160m.
In St John’s Wood, NW8, receivers were appointed on the sale of The Landseer this week.
The site has plans for 129 flats overlooking Lord’s Cricket Ground. It had previously been offered to investors through JLL for around £100m, but prices have since cooled.
The scheme is owned by Matterhorn Capital St John’s Wood Ltd, as group parent, which is not in administration. The ultimate shareholders of the company that owns the site are Marcus Cooper, Anthony Lyons and Simon Conway of the Matterhorn Capital Group.
The loan was held by Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency.
David Oprey and Richard Toone from insolvency and restructuring firm CVR Global have been appointed joint-administrators and fixed charge-receiver of 36 St John’s Wood Road Ltd and 36-44 Lodge Road Ltd.
Oprey said: “Over the last two to three years attempts have been made to move forward with developing the site and have reached various stages, only to fall at the final hurdle.
“Our appointments have come as a result of the asset managers deciding to take a new approach to bringing the development forward.”
According to LonRes, prime London residential sales in the third quarter were down by 39% on the same period last year, which itself was well down on 2014. There was a 6.1% fall in achieved prices compared with Q3 2015. The average discount to asking price was 10.8%.
The average sales value per sq ft in Q3 was £1,352 in NW8 and £1,537 in W1.
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