Cain and Apollo fund Bristol’s tallest tower

Olympian Homes has secured funding from Cain International and Apollo for its student housing scheme in Bristol. The pair have forward funded the £200m St James House, which will deliver two towers containing 442 purpose-built student and 132 co-living beds. The scheme is aiming for completion in time for the 2028 academic year and when complete will be Bristol’s tallest building, rising to 28 storeys. James Lindridge, chief operating officer and development director at Olympian, said: “This financing moves Olympians ‘in construction’ deals to more than 2m sq ft and is an important step in delivering our growth strategy within the UK living sector. “We believe that the UK PBSA market is extremely robust and presents substantial growth opportunity – our focus now turns to our site pipeline.” Oliver Cummings, managing director and head of PBSA, Europe at Cain, said: “Home to two major universities, Bristol has seen consistent growth in student numbers to 70,000 in 2023 representing 10% of the resident population. Securing an asset in such a central location with convenient transport links, positions us well to meet the strong demand while reinforcing our commitment to delivering high-quality, well-amenitised PBSA developments in Russell Group university cities.” Olympian chief executive Richard Simpson added: “This prime PBSA Bristol development sale to Cain is an important step in delivering our growth strategy in the UK living sector. Olympian have successfully traded and grown over the last few years and are now a market leader in developing in the UK living space. “Our recent focus has been on deepening our development pipeline with high-quality opportunities which will deliver this growth strategy over the next few years. Our consistent track record of delivering high-rise, high-density living assets in city centres ensures we will continue to partner with global institutional capital in successfully delivering this strategy.” JLL was appointed to find a funding partner for the development in April this year, as exclusively revealed by EG. Colliers advised Cain on the deal. The scheme, approved by Bristol City Council in February, replaces a 1970s-built Premier Inn in  Haymarket. It has been designed by Hodder + Partners and will also include around 200,000 sq ft of public space. Whitbread submitted a pre-application enquiry to Bristol City Council in 2020 regarding demolishing the Premier Inn. It appointed Olympian Homes as developer in the following year. The existing building was granted planning permission in 1967 and built in the 1970s as an office block. The property was repurposed as a hotel by Whitbread in 1999. Image from Olympian Homes