£20m funding package secured for low carbon home building
A developer has secured a £20m finance package to kick-start the next phase of its low-carbon city centre residential scheme.
Together, a specialist lender which has a loan book of more than £4.4bn, has agreed the facility with Citu, an innovative developer behind the regeneration of large swathes of Leeds city centre on both banks of the River Aire.
The finance will allow Citu to start building the latest residential phase of its Climate Innovation District, which once complete, will be a community of more than 1,000 low carbon, timber-framed homes along with leisure provision, offices, a primary school, care home and a state-of-the-art facility where the buildings are manufactured.
Ian Pickering, Together’s head of development funding, said the package had been agreed to “support Citu’s ambition to tackle climate change by creating one of the UK’s largest sustainable urban developments.”
He added: “Our £20m facility will help Citu achieve their ambitions in creating the next phase of their low-carbon and community-focused Climate Innovation District, to breathe new life into this area of previously disused industrial land, while driving new ways of urban living and working.
“Our experienced development finance team showed fantastic levels of service by completing this major deal less than three weeks after visiting the site and the finance package signals our appetite for future growth in the Yorkshire region.”
Once completed, the latest phase will include 55 homes and 87 apartments ranging from one-bedroom flats with a floor space of up to 549 sq ft to four-bedroom family homes of up to 1,406 sq ft.
The residential development, which sits on the north bank of the river, will also include three penthouses ranging between 1,256 and 1,456 sq ft and 76 car parking spaces.
The project is the latest of Citu’s schemes financed by Together since 2007, most of which have revived urban wasteland or disused buildings.
Chris Thompson, MD of Citu, added: “Our partnership with Together over the last 15 years has been vital in enabling our business, and the communities we are building, to grow.
“We are thrilled to continue our collaboration and take the next phase of the Climate Innovation District forwards.”
