Puma Property Finance announces it is providing a £24m development facility for Vita Group’s latest purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) in Belfast City Centre. The development will deliver 269 studio rooms which will be developed and managed by Vita Student. Completion is expected during the September 2023 academic year.
The scheme offers residents a range of amenities including private dining and study rooms, state-of-the-art gyms, and a daily events roster promoting physical and mental wellbeing. Students will also benefit from the scheme’s location, which is between the prestigious Queen’s University and Belfast city centre.
“Puma’s track record in PBSA makes them the perfect finance partner for Belfast, providing the business with relevant funding to deliver this exceptional building, creating a stand-out product in this new territory.”
Max Bielby, Chief Operating Officer, Vita Group
With the city’s full-time student population of around 45,000, the development facility comes after reports of shortages in university accommodation more broadly across the UK. In its Student Accommodation Report 2022, the research by Cushman & Wakefield suggests that the national student to bed ratio now stands at 2.39:1, with a university-only student to bed ratio standing at 3.0:1.
“We’re delighted to support this development in what we hope will offer best-in-class service to Belfast’s bustling student population. This development will represent Vita’s debut and expansion into Northern Ireland. Vita is already well-known for providing significant amounts of amenity space in comparison to other developers and this will carry across to its latest Belfast development.
“Moreover, with reports of widespread student accommodation shortages creating challenges across the UK, we are proud to continue our ongoing efforts to support developments of this nature.”
Kevin Davidson of Puma Property Finance
Puma has a strong track record of funding student accommodation developments. This latest funding commitment takes its total development of student bedrooms to over 2000 across ten different student accommodation developments to date.
