PGGM Private Real Estate and Rockspring have launched a new joint venture to invest in Berlin value-add offices for companies in dynamic sectors including media, telecommunications and technology. Total initial funding for the joint venture is €250m, with the joint venture’s first acquisition having recently been closed in Kreuzberg.
With this new joint venture, PGGM and Rockspring are aiming to respond to the growing demand from fast growing technology companies with a media, IT and telecommunications focus for modern, flexible office solutions in tech hot spots within the German capital, like Kreuzberg, Mitte, Friedrichshain and Mediaspree.
The joint venture expects to close four to six transactions over the next 18 months. It will focus on existing real estate assets which provide the opportunity to add value, in terms of both improving sustainability and creating services and facilities that contribute to a healthy environment in and around the office. Rockspring’s Berlin office will source and asset manage the portfolio for the new joint venture.
The strategy will be realised initially through the joint venture’s first acquisition, comprising a former factory site which totals 9,270 m² at Ritterstrasse 12-14. The existing seven storey building, which is located in the heart of Kreuzberg, is fully let to a range of tenants on short term leases at relatively low rents. The property includes an undeveloped site with a building permit for 5,520 m² of lettable space, where construction is scheduled to start at the end of 2017. The joint venture is focused on achieving a low CO2 footprint for the total site, the new office building included.
The PGGM-Rockspring joint venture builds on an ongoing successful partnership that has developed over the last 20 years and which has to date invested €950m in German retail real estate. The new joint venture is part of PGGM Private Real Estate’s policy to set up strategic partnerships with prominent real estate managers that have a proven expertise of specific local markets in the most dynamic urban areas in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.
