Retail sold on day one, the upper parts converted to three apartments. GDV £20m in twenty-one months.
Transaction facts
| Service | Development and asset management |
| Location | Mayfair, W1 |
| Scheme | Three apartments, retail sold separately |
| Gross development value | £20m after twenty-one months |
The brief
A retail and office building on one of Mayfair’s best shopping streets. Two assets in one title, with quite different buyers and quite different risk.
What we did
We separated them. The retail space was sold immediately to an investor, which returned capital at the start rather than at the end and left us developing only the part that needed developing. We then applied for consent to convert the upper parts into three apartments. Planning costs came to £150,000 — modest, because the case was prepared properly before it was submitted.
The result
A gross development value of £20m, twenty-one months from purchase. Selling the retail on day one is the decision that made the numbers work: it took the income-producing, slow-moving half of the building off our balance sheet and let us concentrate on the half where the value was actually going to be created.