Students settle in to £6.5m luxury homes
Liverpool’s newest luxury £6.5m student development, Pembroke Studios, has welcomed its first residents.
Situated in the heart of the city’s Knowledge Quarter, at 4-10 Pembroke Place, the six-storey building comprises 94 studio apartments.
Developer YPG, which has its headquarters in the city, sold all the apartments off-plan within six weeks of construction starting, thanks to fervent interest from overseas investors.
The 40,000sq ft development, on the site of the former Salters Building, also features cycle storage, laundry facilities, a student management office, and three ground-floor commercial units totalling 2,700sq ft.
Currently designated for A1/A3, the recently-completed space is already attracting occupier interest, with YPG in discussions to bring an authentic bubble tea café to one of the units. Businesses locating in Pembroke Studios will be benefit from a ready clientele of students, academics and hospital workers from the neighbouring university campuses and Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
With some £180m of developments in YPG’s pipeline, Ming Yeung, managing director of the specialist mixed-use regeneration and property company, explained why the city’s student accommodation market is in such rude health: “Liverpool’s student population is up a fifth on this time last year, with around 60,000 students choosing to study here – and this growth is showing no signs of slowing down.
“Transformative projects like the Knowledge Quarter are set to make the city a global leader in sensor technology, while advancing its existing strengths in infectious disease research and life sciences.
“These R&D intensive industries thrive on close links to universities and hospitals. Liverpool is fast developing a world-class clinical academic campus, and students from around the world will continue to be drawn to it.
“Increasingly, the demand is for high-specification, secure accommodation, in the heart of the city. The days of overcrowded house shares in the suburbs are becoming a thing of the past.
“This was reflected in investor interest in Pembroke Studios. We’re confident that, subject to consent, we’ll see similar demand for our planned student, key-worker and professional accommodation developments on Devon Street, New Islington, and at Hamilton Square, on the Wirral.”
YPG has just started on site with a 10-storey, 218 bed student and key-worker development on Devon Street, New Islington, with the first residents expected to move in during early 2019.
The company has also applied for planning permission to convert an old Wirral Council building, just off Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, into a 200-bed student apartment block.
