Funding of £125 million has been secured for a student-led mixed-use development scheme in London.

The development, which will be offered exclusively to King's College London (KCL) students, will feature 654 beds alongside 60,000 sq. ft of Grade-A office accommodation and an incubator space for entrepreneurial start-up businesses.

Urbanest's Aldgate scheme, to be known as UrbanestCity, is being completed by Balfour Beatty with a funding loan from M&G Investments.

The remains of a bastion tower and part of the 4th century wall that encircled the Roman City of Londinium are concealed beneath the Aldgate development. Urbanest is working with Museum of London to incorporate these archaeological remains into the project, which consolidates two former office buildings (Emperor House and Roman Wall House) acquired by Urbanest in early 2017. 


The Roman remains are set to be made readily accessible to the public for the first time within a three-storey gallery and museum.

Vicky Skinner, CFO at Urbanest, said: "This is Urbanest's most ambitious student-led mixed-use development to date, providing a unique blend of student housing, heritage, entrepreneurial innovation, commerce and leisure space uses which will sit alongside and complement each other in the completed scheme. We are delighted to be working with M&G and KCL again and our aspiration with Urbanest City is to add another landmark location within our expanding PBSA portfolio."

Adam Willis, Associate Director in M&G's Real Estate Finance team, added: "Urbanest continues to provide fantastic facilities for students in London and we are delighted to expand our relationship and enable the construction of this exciting development. We continue to see increasing demand for student accommodation in the capital and this deal provides our institutional investors with access to attractive returns secured against high quality real estate in London's city centre."

The building is scheduled for completion in 2021.

(CM/MH)