Resolution Property has swooped on a Whitechapel development opportunity earmarked for a luxury hotel after the site’s owner was taken over by its lender.
The company has exchanged contracts to buy Black Lion House at 45 Whitechapel Road, E1, for around £32.5m from the lender to Guernsey-based Union Hanover Group.
Union Hanover was taken over by Real Estate Debt Securities at the end of October after a management buy-out of the company fell through.
It owned several developments in the UK, including hotel schemes in Stratford and Edinburgh.
Union Hanover secured consent for a 217-bedroom Grzywinski+Pons-designed hotel conversion of the 65,000 sq ft building in 2013, which it intended to operate under its Urban Villa brand.
Resolution has now appointed BuckleyGreyYeoman to design an office-led refurbishment and repositioning of the building as it seeks to tap into the area’s burgeoning creative and digital business community.
It will be the company’s second Whitechapel development, following its purchase of the former Wickhams department store on Mile End Road, which has been transformed into a digital and creative hub.
The latest acquisition is understood to have been made on behalf of an existing Resolution fund and is not part of fund five, which is currently being raised in joint venture with Chinese conglomerate Fosun.
Hatton Real Estate advised Resolution Property; Colliers International advised the vendor.
