News

ZBG and Breevast complete sale to Instone

4 October, 2019
ZBG and Breevast complete sale to Instone of one of Germany's largest residential projects: office complex site to be redeveloped into more than 1,200 new homes in the popular Gallus inner-city district of Frankfurt am Main

Dutch investor ZBG Group of Companies (ZBG) and real estate developerBreevast have sold one of Germany's largest housing projects to the listed German residential real estate developer Instone Real Estate Group AG. The completion of this transaction will allow Instone to enter the next project phase and pursue the beginning of construction at Frankfurt's Kleyerstrasse 94 in the popular inner-city district of Gallus. This significant district redevelopment aims to help meet the urgent and growing demand for more urban housing.

Transformation into residential district
The asset, consisting of an office complex, was acquired by ZBG in 2003 and leased to the company Avaya Inc. until the end of 2017. ZBG and Breevast’s investment decision was based on their observation that the surrounding area was slowly evolving from an office district into a residential district. ZBG and Breevast took advantage of this trend to initiate a lengthy and intensive process together with the local municipality to amend the zoning plan in order to be able to eventually realize residential development on] this location. The asset-, development- and transaction management were executed by Breevast. Once realized, the project will consist of more than 1,200 homes with a total size of around 119,000 square meters, as well as approximately 6,000 square meters of retail space and 30,000 square meters of parking space.

Project handover to Instone Real Estate
As ZBG and Breevast have chosen to focus their real estate development on other geographies, the completion of the rezoning to residential purposes resulted in the decision to divest the development project. A tender process, managed by CBRE, selected listed Instone Real Estate Group AG, one of Germany's largest residential developers. After completion and handover of the project to Instone, residential development is expected to begin shortly.

Henk Brouwer, CEO of Breevast and member of the Management Board of ZBG, says: "In the real estate world, too little attention has been paid in recent years to the development of urban housing. This has resulted in a shortage of housing in large cities all over the world. We see this project as a great example of Breevast's strategy to help realize more living space in cities and participate in urban (re)development. Breevast is also active in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Belgium and Luxembourg."

Andreas Gräf, COO at Instone says about the project: "Large German cities and in particular Frankfurt am Main are in urgent need of new housing. The conversion of former industrial sites or outdated office space into residential units is playing an increasingly important role. We are delighted that strong partners like ZBG and Breevast, as well as the City of Frankfurt, share our vision for the Avaya site. Instone Real Estate brings many years of experience in the overall development and full realization of large urban neighborhoods to this project." 
Back