PE Firm, Developer Team Up For Second London Living Scheme
U.S. private equity firm H.I.G. Capital and UK developer Hub have teamed up to buy a development site in south London where they will join forces on a residential-led scheme.
The duo bought a 1.2-acre site in Elephant and Castle from Lendlease, south of Waterloo station, for £42M. The site is part of Elephant Park, the 3,000-home project underway from Lendlease. The plot is the final part of the Elephant Park project.
The land, which already has commercial consent, is set to be transformed into a development offering an unspecified number of shared-living homes, affordable homes, new public realm, ground-floor retail and a health hub.
In July, H.I.G. and Hub teamed up to buy Finsgate House near the Old Street roundabout in east London for £31M. The three existing buildings on the site total 43K SF. Those will be knocked down, making way for a new mixed-use scheme comprising offices and residential.
H.I.G. raised £1B in June for its third European real estate fund, significantly more than the £585M it raised for its previous European real estate fund in 2019. It said the UK and Germany will be a major focus of the fund.
The firm called the Finsgate House deal the debut project for a new “living platform” that will target other development deals to create London residential assets.
Elephant Park includes affordable, build-to-rent and market-sale housing as well as a 2-acre public park, 50 retail and leisure units, and a net-zero-carbon district heating network to serve the emerging residential community.
“This acquisition continues our Central London, ultra urban living strategy and is the fifth asset in this portfolio, giving us a fantastic opportunity to show that alternative housing can support positive regeneration in central London and play its part in alleviating the UK’s housing shortage,” Hub CEO Robert Sloss said in a statement.
“It brings further options for housing and a new health hub as well as adding to the existing retail offer that Elephant Park has become known for,” Lendlease Development Management and Executive Director Angela Brennan said.
