AREA to Help Finance Gerald Ronson's Luxury-Home Project in City of London
AREA Property Partners, the New York-based investment firm formerly known as Apollo Real Estate Advisors, will help U.K. investor Gerald Ronson finance the biggest residential development in the City of London in 30 years.
AREA bought about 40 percent of the luxury-homes project from Heron International, the U.S. firm’s head of Europe, William Benjamin, said in an interview. Heron, the property company run by Ronson, is about to start building the 36-story tower, spokeswoman Emma Kane said.
The building forms part of a 1.5 billion-pound ($2.2 billion) trio of City of London projects by London-based Heron, including an office tower that will be the tallest in the U.K. capital’s main financial district. Ronson is betting that more people who work in the area will also want to live there.
“It’s a great location in a great city,” Benjamin said. “Ronson’s been in the business for 50 years and seen lots of cycles, so I think he knows what works and what doesn’t.”
Heron has already sold about 30 percent of the building’s 284 apartments, Lisa Ronson, the company’s marketing director, said in an interview. The tower, next to the Barbican complex, will have a school of performing arts on the first six floors as well as a roof garden and private club for tenants. It’s scheduled to be completed in 2013.
Heron is constructing the 46-story Heron Tower, one of only two prime office buildings opening in the City next year. The developer is also seeking permission for a 43-story tower next to that which will include a Four Seasons Hotel.
Apollo Real Estate Advisors was created in 1993 by William Mack and the private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC before changing its name to AREA Property Partners, according to the company’s website.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Bourke in London at cbourke4@bloomberg.net.
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