Cambridge builds for student boom

As part of a mixed use scheme on 26 acres around Station Road, Cambridge, Powell Williams, the project management firm, is to manage the £40 million construction of student accommodation.

Student housing has been one of the growth sectors for the property industry in the current period of hard economic times. In the case of Cambridge, it will be 511 bedrooms in three buildings for Anglia Ruskin University. Andrew Marshall of Powell Williams commented: “The growing requirement for high quality student accommodation shows no sign of waning and demonstrates how this one area of the market is booming, while others are suffering. Such schemes are offering one of the only streams for new build investment opportunities in the current market.”

The key to this is that such schemes can raise private capital; in this case forward funding from LaSalle Investment. John Yeend of LaSalle said: “This project offers a unique opportunity to participate in the reinvigoration of this part of Cambridge through the development of new facilities for Anglia Ruskin University, alongside the wider development of new homes, hotels, shops, offices and public space.”

The scheme has been designed by TP Bennett Architects and is designed to meet the BREEAM excellent sustainability rating, which is an increasingly important requirement on new buildings. According to Mike Ayton of Juniper Estates, the Cambridge office market continues to be active and the first half take up, together with deals in the pipeline, indicates that the total for the year will be over 37,160 sq.metres. “Companies like Jagex and Arm are expanding and we are getting to the point when developers need to go for speculative schemes. The vacancy rate for good buildings is only 3.5%.”