Union Investment has acquired the Diamond office building in the Belgian city of Ghent through the property company Global Life Tree NV. The seller is a joint venture between Flemish developers Global Estate Group and Life Tree Group. The parties agreed not to disclose the purchase price. The acquisition is being made on behalf of open-ended special real estate fund UII EuropeanM, which is targeted at institutional investors.
“Ghent is the third-largest city in Belgium and has a strong economy. Due to limited availability of office space, tenant demand for modern, centrally located office space is high,” said Wolfgang Kessler, a member of the management team at Union Investment Institutional Property.
Completed at the end of 2019, the office building is free-standing and sits above a public underground car park with some 3,000 parking spaces. The 8-storey property offers total rental space of around 16,000m². It has seven office floors and a spacious lobby on the ground floor, featuring a restaurant open to the public. The building is fully let to Dutch financial services provider ING and Belgian railway operator NMBS. It has BREEAM Very Good pre-certification.
