Legal & General has exchanged contracts to acquire land in the centre of Brighton for the city’s first build-to-rent development.
The Longley House site to the east of the New England Quarter will be L&G’s seventh BTR project.
Subject to planning, the site, currently industrial space, will provide 200 homes and up to 32,000 sq ft of commercial space targeted at start-ups and SMEs. It will have an end value of £80m.
Dan Batterton, BTR fund manager at LGIM Real Assets, said: “Brighton is a vibrant city where people want to live and work. This acquisition represents a rare opportunity to acquire land in an unrivalled location and to deliver the first institutional-grade BTR scheme. We look forward to working with the council to support Brighton’s talented workforce with the homes they deserve.”
Legal & General has raised pension fund capital for an open-ended BTR fund alongside a £600m joint venture between Legal & General Capital and PGGM. It now has sites in Leeds, Bristol, Bath, Walthamstow, E17,0 Birmingham, Salford and Brighton.
Mathieu Elshout, senior director private real estate at PGGM, said: “Our successful venture with Legal & General continues to materialise at pace through a range of BTR-development programmes across the UK.
“This is in line with our ambition to build long-term partnerships with prominent local real estate players. In these partnerships we focus on cities such as Brighton which represent strong economic regions with significant potential for further growth. Brighton has a severe housing shortage and our investment will help address this by creating a highly sustainable and high-quality BTR offer for the city.”
James Lidgate, chief executive officer at Legal & General Homes, added: “Brighton is a thriving City with a hugely talented workforce. The UK needs urban centres that are fit for purpose and can support a creative, sustainable community like Brighton. Our BTR pipeline is growing at pace and it is exciting to see the impact that our developments are making to our UK cities.”
Legal & General’s BTR platform now has a pipeline of around 2,000 homes, with the aim to have 6,000 in planning, development or operation by the end of 2019.
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