Housebuilder St Modwen has acquired a part-built apartment scheme at St Anne’s Court in Birmingham’s city centre for around £9m.
Birmingham-based St Modwen has acquired the freehold for the 170-home scheme from administrators following the collapse of Developments One, part of ESRG Developments.
St Modwen has typically focused on large-scale brownfield regeneration, delivering houses on out-of-town sites. In a surprise move, the housebuilder has beaten competition to pick up the part-built city scheme.
Administrators appointed GVA (now Avison Young) to sell the scheme in October 2018. By January the agent had received 11 initial bids from 10 interested parties, and subsequently selected St Modwen.
St Anne’s Court has planning permission for a five-storey residential scheme spanning 140,956 sq ft.
It comprises one- and two-bedroom apartments with ground floor retail space and parking, with an estimated end value of £30m.
The 1.19-acre site is half a mile from Birmingham’s Bullring and New Street station, in the Digbeth district of the city. It sits on the corner of Lombard Street and Bradford Street, adjacent to SevenCapital’s 313-home Fabrick Square, which is currently under construction, and opposite two further sites from ESRG Developments with consent for 367 homes.
ESRG’s special purpose vehicle Developments One entered administration following the liquidation of the main contractor, BCL.
Creditor UE Finco appointed SFP’s Simon Plant and Daniel Plant on 21 May 2018 after it breached banking covenants. It had sold 77 apartments off-plan before the collapse, with a GDV of £14.2m. A further 93 apartments remained unsold.
The site was sold with a 10-year building warranty and the section 106 contribution of £153,000 fully paid, and it will now be down to St Modwen to complete the 170-home development.
Digbeth is also home to what will be the £1bn Smithfield regeneration from Birmingham City Council and jv partner Lendlease, which will see an estimated 2,000 homes.
The area is set to benefit from the opening of HS2’s Curzon Street station and the extension of the metro planned for Deritend High Street, and has a number of large consented resi developments on the horizon.
All parties declined to comment.
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