Delancey’s Kensington Odeon site, W6, has been acquired by a private development fund understood to be a Lodha-affiliated company.
EG reported in July that a special purpose vehicle backed by Abhishek Lodha, managing director and chief executive of Lodha Group, had exchanged contracts to buy the site, which could have an end value of close to £300m.
The fund is now looking to progress with development and has appointed India’s Lodha as development manager for the project.
Lodha made headlines in 2013 when it bought the Canadian Embassy on Grosvenor Square, W1 for £306m, but it had not been active in the London market since 2014.
The Kensington Odeon scheme has planning consent for 43 prime homes and 20 affordable flats for the elderly in a development retaining the listed art deco façade of the exiting cinema.
Minerva, the owner of the site that Delancey bought in 2011 with Ares, had been seeking offers of around £90m. It is understood that the Lodha-backed fund fought off competition from Galliard to buy the project.
Knight Frank and Savills acted as sales agents for the site.
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