Moda Living has partnered with leading global real estate development and investment group – Osborne & Co – to launch a new initiative across the UK. The collaboration will deliver new live work campuses – combining Build to Rent with life sciences and best-in-class commercial space.
Building on their respective pipelines of prime city centre schemes, Moda and Osborne’s new partnership will aim to unlock sites that are suitable for delivering best-in-class, tech enabled neighbourhoods with a focus on highly amenitised, highly serviced masterplans with unparalleled public realm.
The partnership’s first site will be The Waterside Build to Rent scheme in Belfast – Moda’s first scheme off mainland UK. The Waterside will deliver a £150m, 500-home Build to Rent neighbourhood alongside Osborne, as masterplan developer delivering the wider scheme of circa 1.2m sq ft across Grade A office space, technology and innovation space and amenity.
“We are very excited to be pursuing a new initiative with Osborne & Co who share our vision of creating and managing state-of-the-art places that have tomorrows wants and needs. We believe Build to Rent and Life Sciences go hand in hand with a shared target dimorphic and a focus on high quality service driven real estate.
“We’re also thrilled to be building our first development outside of mainland UK. Belfast has a fantastic market with a growing economy, high university retention rate, highly paid and specialist industries and a substantial housing shortage
“The Waterside is the perfect place to define this as a major hub for science, cyber security, fintech and more and a genuine shortage of quality housing to provide this sector with places to live. Together, we will transform the area into a thriving new urban community, with best-in-class homes, public spaces and amenities creating an outstanding location to live, work and play.”
Oscar Brooks, Director, Moda Living
Moda is acquiring the two-acre site from Osborne & Co. The partnership will bring forward the wider placemaking and public realm, seeking to attract market leading occupiers in next generation spaces. Both businesses have worked closely to bring forward The Waterside development, designing a market-leading scheme and procure contractors, ensuring the vision moves from concept to reality.
The Waterside neighbourhood will deliver places of the future to live, work and play with largescale public realm, retail and leisure amenities. The landmark site, under a mile from Belfast city centre, sits on the river and has direct access into the city’s Central Business District.
The scheme will prioritise strong sustainability credentials – and is targeting GRESB and 3-star Fitwel accreditation. Earlier this year, Moda’s McEwan building in Edinburgh became Europe’s first project to achieve the highest Fitwel rating of three stars. Osborne will be delivering BREEAM Excellent across the commercial space and will collaborate with Moda to create a holistic development with strong and comprehensive ESG credentials.
“Our growing partnership with Moda is a truly exciting initiative and we are confident it will be a key driver in unlocking major, strategic mixed-use sites across the UK. Our approach to design and placemaking will create integrated communities of tomorrow that have not been delivered before in the UK and provide totally unique spaces to live and work with a focus on sustainability and ESG.”
Conor Osborne, Director, Osborne & Co
The new live work neighbourhoods will continue to embody Moda’s core brand principles of outstanding customer service, integrated technology and health and wellbeing, combined to deliver the optimum rental experience and a better quality of life. The principles seamlessly transfer to Osborne’s delivery of commercial office and technology and innovation real estate solutions for major occupiers in a new digital age, with both uses sharing the same target market for staff and resident retention.
The burgeoning UK Build to Rent market is growing rapidly, with Savills expecting it to double in size in the next 10-15 years. Positioning this alongside traditional office and innovation and technology real estate will be a catalyst for a sector which itself is paving the way for major investment and life-changing innovation across the UK. The news comes after the UK Government’s recent announcement that it has launched a life sciences investment programme – to make £1bn available to the UKs most promising life sciences companies.
Moda plans to unlock masterplans across the UK – to deliver Build to Rent schemes alongside large scale, best-in-class commercial and life science space. Target cities include Belfast, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh and Birmingham.
