UK: Macquarie Asset Management’s BTR arm Goodstone Living has secured more than £100 million of debt financing and appointed a construction partner for a 550-unit scheme in Birmingham.
The debt financing, provided by NatWest and Allied Irish Bank, will support the transformation of a 4.2-acre island site in Digbeth.
The scheme, called Smith’s Garden, will comprise 550 rental homes centred around more than an acre of private garden. Other amenities include a coworking space, fitness centre and creche. The homes will be arranged across six buildings, including a 26-storey landmark tower.
The buildings will be manufactured offsite by Elements Europe at its modular factory in Telford. Construction will start imminently and be completed during 2025.
Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands, said: “Schemes likes this help to drive growth and regeneration right across our region. Smith’s Garden will be providing high quality new rental homes with high environmental standards in historic Digbeth – at the same time as creating jobs and opportunities for local people and the wider community.”
“It’s great to see modular construction taking centre stage here – with Elements generating highly skilled jobs in Telford in a factory that will power the delivery of thousands of homes in the months and years ahead. It’s also good news that jobs will be created in Digbeth itself during the construction phase. I cannot wait to see this project come to fruition,” he added.
Martin Bellinger, principal at Goodstone Living, said: “Smith’s Garden is one of the largest and most exciting build-to-rent residential projects in the UK and is testament to the evolution of this sector over the past 15 years. We want to show it is not just possible but desirable to build better now, and this helps improve and future proof assets for all of our stakeholders. This project also marks an important milestone for Goodstone which now has almost 1,000 units under construction and a large pipeline of development opportunities to scale its portfolio by leveraging the market dislocation driven by a higher rates environment and challenges facing the traditional build-to-sell model.”
David Jones, chief executive of Elements Europe, added: “Elements Europe are proud to have partnered with Goodstone Living over the past 18-months to design and prepare the largest modular build-to-rent residential construction scheme to date in the UK. Utilising Modern Methods of Construction and delivering the apartments in a fully modular form not only provides programme benefits to our client, but also reduces the construction footprint by over 3,700 less vehicle movements into Birmingham and creates over 35 per cent less construction waste than traditional construction methods. We will continue to contribute to the development of MMC in the UK together with GS E&C and The Pickstock Group.”
