Global co-living operator Quarters has launched in the UK with a goal to expand to at least 1,500 bedrooms in London alone this year.
It is currently under offer on two schemes totalling 600 bedrooms, with 350 in London and 250 in Manchester, with the two sites secured, and is in talks with potential funders.
Medici Living’s Quarters arm claims to be the world’s largest co-living provider, with more than 5,000 beds in 15 cities. To date, it has had more than 12,000 people stay at its properties.
It will seek to grow a portfolio of at least 1,000 co-living bedrooms in major UK cities as part of a global expansion to reach more than 1m users by 2025.
Quarters’ global head of expansion, Philip Grace, says: “We are very focused on gateway cities. In the UK, that means London and Manchester. Our primary focus is London. Some will be existing stock; some will be ground-up development.”
Grace says the operator aims to have at least 1,500 bedrooms operational in London within a year, and expects this to grow to 2,500 bedrooms within two years.
“If we are not getting there, I don’t think we will have done a job. Despite Brexit, elections and everything else, London is London. One thing we can never do in London is build sufficient homes for people to live in.”
The operator offers flatshare-style co-living, with apartments of three to four bedrooms to create communities in larger buildings with added communal space.
The first two schemes comprise an office-to-residential conversion in London and a purpose-built residential building in Manchester.
Quarters is in talks with a number of funders to acquire sites that it will run under master-lease agreements with developers.
The Berlin-based company has 3,000 operational bedrooms in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, with a further 2,000 under construction.
To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette
