Greystar Real Estate have acquired a site close to the still under construction Union Park in Wembley Park from Quintain for an undisclosed sum. It will provide 770 student beds. Coming on top of the news of a new hotel in Olympic Way many may think local housing needs and the need to build community are being sidelined. As planning consent was granted to Quintain in December 2022 work will start immediately with occupation of the block starting in August 2025.
From the Greystone Press Release:
Greystar Real Estate Partners, LLC (“Greystar”), a global leader in the investment, development, and management of high-quality real estate, including rental housing, logistics, and life sciences, has acquired a site at Wembley Park from Quintain on behalf of its pan-European residential fund GEPE I for an undisclosed sum.
Greystar will build a 20-storey purpose-built student accommodation development on the site comprising 770 beds alongside 7,480 sq. ft. of internal and 9,096 sq. ft. of external amenity space. The well-amenitised scheme has been designed to a BREEAM Excellent rating and features two lounges, gym, screen room, games room, private dining space, communal study area, space for socialising, cycle storage spaces, and external gardens and podiums.
The site benefits from a 100% market rent PBSA planning consent, with planning permission obtained by Quintain in December 2022, and forms part of the wider Wembley Park regeneration programme. Demolition at the site has been completed and McAleer & Rushe has been appointed as the construction partner. On-site development will begin immediately with first occupancy from September 2025. Greystar intends to operate the asset under the Canvas brand, complementing its existing adjacent 283-bed PBSA site in the Wembley Park area.
Set within the North East Lands development, the site is part of a 12-acre district that will ultimately deliver 2,347 residential units of varying tenures next to the biodiverse seven-acre Union Park. Wembley Park is now an established neighbourhood, and an increasingly popular environment for students to live. The site is ideally located close to the iconic Wembley Stadium and only a four-minute walk to Wembley Park tube station (Jubilee and Metropolitan lines) providing easy access into Central London and its Universities.
Greystar’s investment reflects the ongoing attractiveness of London, characterised by an acute shortage of high-quality student accommodation – and the capital’s status as the top global capital city for overseas students with its world-class universities and higher education institutions, as well as its rich culture, vibrant entertainment, and unparalleled career opportunities.
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3 comments:
With apparently 20K people on the Brent Council housing waiting list surely the last thing we need in Brent (and particularly in Wembley) is yet more student accomodation??????
Is it true that none of these students will pay any council tax here at all??? And the building owners won't pay any council tax here either??? If this is true how can it be fair to burden our already overstretched local services (refuse collections, doctors, police etc) with the needs of a extra 770 residents with no contribution made to local funding?
How are these student blocks checked to ensure that they are only housing students on full time accredited courses? Surely there's a risk that non students could move in and get away with paying council tax?
Re-designate all of Brent's 8 Growth Areas as 'Right' rather than 'Wrong' Places.....
Start planning and building to provide human support infrastructure, so apparent in other London integrated growth areas, appropriate to these car-free housed massive population increases Brent zoned.
Re-developers are Brent allowed to regard green space and social community infrastructure as being zone "onerous", that Wrong needs to be put Right.
Community gains at Kings Cross and Paddington by equity-led planning, Brent can learn. Wembley Riverside Park, Harlesden Canalside, Kilburn 2 ha Park- all should equity happen, nothing onerous to see there!
To quote from a Planning Officer's report, about another student accommodation tower-block application in Wembley High Road last November:
'Student housing contributes to Brent’s housing targets, at a rate of 2.5 bedspaces to one conventional housing unit.'
All those people in Brent in need of genuinely affordable homes, yet Brent have approved this block of 770 more student rooms. It will "contribute" 308 "homes" to Brent's housing targets, without providing any real homes for the Brent people who actually need them!
Good for the tick-box numbers in Brent's housing targets, and no doubt a good investment for Greystar Real Estate Partners, LLC (a type of U.S. business entity that protects its owners from personal responsibility for its debts of liabilities). Good also for Quintain, who have sold the site with planning consent for an 'undisclosed sum' which will help their profits.
Not good for real people in Brent, especially those in housing need.
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