Le mie ricette per la real estate communityAXA Real Estate Investment Managers , the leading real estate portfolio and asset manager in Europe, with €46 billion of assets under management as at June 2013, announces that it has commenced construction of the first phase of a major new 86,000 sqm office development in Paris. The project is being undertaken on behalf of Development Venture III (“DVIII”), the pan-European development vehicle, which is managed by AXA Real Estate and acquired the site in May 2011, having been selected as a partner of the Opale-Défense consortium. AXA Real Estate has appointed SODEARIF/ ICADE and Bouygues Construction as respectively development and construction managers.
The project is located in Balard, Paris innercity, next to the new 340,000 sqm headquarters of the French Ministry of Defence which is currently under construction and will accommodate around 9,300 people once complete in 2015. Designed by Wilmotte & Associés, the project comprises four office buildings totalling nearly 86,000 sqm to be constructed in two phases.
The first phase will deliver two buildings of 20,000 sqm and 26,000 sqm of rentable area, each set over eight floors, and able to accommodate around 4,100 people. It will also have space for 375 car parking spaces. The second construction phase, which will comprise an additional 40,000 sqm of space and 325 more car parking spaces, is expected to commence during 2015 although the delivery schedule is flexible and could be brought forward in accordance with demand.
Development finance for the first phase of the project has been agreed with a consortium of French banks.
Situated in south-west Paris, the scheme is in a prime location in an established district of the city. It benefits from excellent transport links, being served by RER express train, two lines of the Paris Métro and two lines of tramway, and, as well as being easily accessible by car, making it appealing to a wide range of occupiers attracted to the area due to its proximity to other blue chip institutions in the immediate vicinity. The project comprises 1.3 hectares of new landscaped gardens, connected to the Sarrabezolles Square, that will provide the entire site with a novel ‘campus’ ,
environment that can be enjoyed by all office occupants and is unique for a new Paris city centre scheme.
In line with AXA Real Estate’s commitment to sustainable development, the new buildings have been designed to minimise energy consumption and include other environmentally conscious initiatives such as rain water harvesting and solar heating / power use. AXA Real Estate is also aiming to achieve maximum recycling targets during demolition and is targeting a HQE® sustainability certifications as well as BBC-effinergie® and BREEAM® ‘Very Good’ certification for the project.
AXA Real Estate has a strong track record in development across Europe, managing over 250 projects since 2000 with a combined gross development value exceeding €8 billion. Leveraging from this wide ranging development expertise, AXA Real Estate is currently developing 1 million sqm of space with a gross development value of €5 billion across the office, residential, retail, logistics and hospitality sectors. Recent examples include the development of the ‘Sixty London’ in the City of London, which was delivered and let in May this year and the new 40,000 sqm ‘Citizen’ building in Paris’s Western Business District which was pre-sold to Union Investment Real Estate GmbH, pre-let and delivered to Coface as its new global headquarters and GRT-Gaz in July.
Source : Company