Listed housebuilder Grainger and Bouygues UK have struck a deal to purchase a sought-after PRS development opportunity in Bristol’s historic city centre.
The joint venture has placed the 2.7-acre former central ambulance station site under offer, along with adjoining land on Castle Street, for around £6m.
The pair is planning a 200-home private rental development, which would be Bristol’s first major PRS scheme.
Bristol council and the Homes and Communities Agency pooled their landholdings to assemble the site – a rare opportunity for large-scale city centre development – in 2014.
Grainger’s and Bouygues’ plan is expected to have a gross development value of around £50m.
A local source said: “The resurgent office market and the high price of central Bristol land made this site a rare opportunity for a viable PRS project.”
Bouygues will manage the development, with Grainger taking control of the finished product and managing it on completion.
The model follows a collaborative build-to-let arrangement that the firms have been operating since 2011, when they created a fund to jointly attract institutional investment into the PRS.
This will be the pair’s fourth joint development, with other projects including London Road in Barking, Essex, and Pontoon Dock in Newham, E12.
Some 40% of the net sale proceeds will go to the council, with the remainder going to the HCA.
The site became available after the Great Western Ambulance Service decided to seek an alternative city centre location in 2012, selling its station and offices to the HCA.
Bristol council’s holdings comprise a one-acre site on Castle Street, presently in use as a car park.
Grainger has been expanding its pipeline of developments outside London in an attempt to diversify and tap into regional demand. So far this year it has made purchases in the North, the Midlands and Hampshire.
According to CBRE residential yields research, rental yields in regional cities average 6.75%.
