Union Investment has acquired two properties in the STEP Stuttgart Engineering Park. Completed in 2002, the STEP 4 infrastructure building offers around 7,000m² of rental space and is used for retail, restaurants and cafes and fitness facilities. It, therefore, provides key services for all the companies located in the business park. STEP 8.3 is a six-storey office building with approximately 8,000m² of rental space which has only recently been completed. Both properties were fully let at the time of acquisition. The vendor and the future property manager is STEP Stuttgarter Engineering Park GmbH. The purchase price for the two properties is over €30m, with the acquisition being made on behalf of Austrian real estate fund immofonds 1.
Stuttgart Engineering Park was opened in 2000 and currently comprises twelve properties with total rental space of around 120,000m². Union Investment has been invested in the location since 2006 and its real estate fund holdings already include STEP 6, comprising rental space of approximately 33,000m², and STEP 9, which offers some 5,000m².
The largest tenants in the STEP 8.3 office new build are Yves Rocher with approximately 3,500m² and IT company GEBIT Solutions, which occupies some 1,500m². The largest of the ten tenants in the STEP 4 infrastructure building are STEP Sports GmbH, a fitness and health club operator that uses approximately 2,000m², and caterer Sodexo. In addition to a 2,500m² staff restaurant, Sodexo occupies around 800m² of conference space. The property also contains additional service providers, including a bistro, a bank, a hairdresser’s and a dry cleaner’s.
“Both properties are clearly a positive addition to the holdings of immofonds 1. STEP 8.3 is a high-quality new build with a highly diversified tenant structure. STEP 4 is likewise used by various different tenants and offers medium-term potential for delivering higher income through active asset management,” said Kurt Rossmuller, a member of the Management Board of Union Investment Real Estate Austria AG.
“Acquisition of smaller properties such as these in Stuttgart is a new focus of our investment strategy in the DACH region,” said Alejandro Obermeyer, head of Investment Management DACH at Union Investment Real Estate GmbH. “Most of our actively managed real estate funds invest in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and increasingly we want to use smaller lot sizes to meet that need.”
