04.11.2021
LEADING CITIES INVEST invests in an ecological new office building project in Lille
- 5-story wooden office building with hanging gardens
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Low-energy house with BREEAM Very good” certification as a target
Low-energy house with BREEAM Very good” certification as a target
LEADING CITIES INVEST has invested in a sophisticated ecological new of-fice building project in Lille. The “Panorama” project, a 5-story office building located on a canal, is to be built from three connected building sections. The structure, frame and scaffolding will be made 100 percent from wood, a renewable resource, and will stand on the two-story concrete base at the parking level, ground floor and first floor. Roofs and terraces will be planted with greenery and a “hanging garden” with an area of around 2,300 square meters will be built in the middle of the three building sections, as well as accessible roof gardens. There are 248 parking spaces on the ground floor and first floor. 10 percent of the parking spaces are intended for electric cars; a further 10 percent will be pre-equipped so that they can be set up flexibly at any time. The ambitious ecological project with almost 6,000 square meters of office space, a restaurant, cafeteria, fitness rooms and storage and archive rooms is scheduled for completion by 2023 and will then receive two certifications: BREEAM “Very Good” and BBCA ("Bâtiment Bas Carbone", this corre-sponds to a low-energy house).
The Panorama building benefits from the pleasant surroundings of the “Quai 22” district in the northwest of Lille. A new mixed-use area is being created here, which is located near the city's most important sub-markets. The building is located less than four kilometers from the “Lille Center”, “Euralille” and its two TGV train stations. The old town of Lille and the “Grands Boulevards” submarket are also within easy reach. According to the C-Score-model developed by KanAm Grund Group, Lille is classified as a Leading City National with the grade "Very good" for office use. The sub-scoring structure and location quality receive two out of three scores (very good) in the model. The real estate market also achieve two out of three scores (very good). Among the Leading City National locations, Lille scoresparticularly well for the num-ber of inhabitants in the metropolitan region, as an attractive location for international retailers, for its connection to the high-speed rail network, with its very high quality of life as well as for itslow particulate matter pollution and high number of universities.
The ecologically oriented new building project Panorama fits seamlessly into the ini-tiative “LEADING CITIES INVEST goes green”, the successfully and sustainably anchored process in the corporate strategy of the KanAm Grund Group. 15 proper-ties with a value of around 618 million euros are currently certified or are in a certifi-cation process. This corresponds to a certification rate of over 57 percent based on the total real estate assets of the LEADING CITIES INVEST. LEADING CITIES INVEST also bundled the energy supply for its buildings in a new framework agreement and can now cover its general electricity and natural gas requirements in a CO2-neutral manner. At the same time, since the beginning of 2020, tenants have also been motivated to sign a framework agreement for renewable energies with their rental space to increase the effectiveness of energy conversion of the LEADING CITIES INVEST properties. In this way, around 4,386 tons of CO2 can be saved annually.
The LEADING CITIES INVEST is mainly invested in office properties. After the purchase in Barcelona, the real estate portfolio of the LEADING CITIES INVEST is spread over 40 properties at 26 locations in 10 countries in Europe and the USA. According to the current assessment of the independent rating agency Scope, LEADING CITIES INVEST has - as in the previous year - the best real estate portfolio within the commercial real estate fund. In contrast to the industry average, the LEADING CITIES INVEST was even able to slightly improve the valuation of its real estate portfolio compared to the previous year, according to Scope. This makes it one of only 4 open-ended real estate funds that were rated a + (AIF). Due to the existing portfolio allocation, Scope expects a return above the average of the peer group for the LEADING CITIES INVEST in 2021 as well. Scope upgraded the asset management rating of the KanAm Grund Group in the real estate segment from AA-(AMR) to AA(AMR).