Empiric Student Property’s acquisition spree continues with the £11.92m purchase of the Ballet School in Glasgow. The Ballet School is a conversion of the listed former home of the Scottish Ballet, on Willowbank Crescent, comprising 103 self-contained studios of various sizes, which was completed in 2013. The property has been bought from the developer, CCG (Scotland) Limited. It’s located adjacent to the former Willowbank Primary School which is being developed into a 178 bed, high-specification student accommodation scheme by Empiric in conjunction with its joint venture partner, an affiliated company of Revcap Advisors Limited. The combination of these two properties will result in a 281 bed property in a good location in the West End of Glasgow.
The Ballet School has been fully let since it began operations and management of the property will continue to be undertaken by Corporate Residential Management Limited (“CRM”) under a new contract that will incorporate the Willowbank Development, which is expected to commence operations in time for the 2016/2017 academic year. The Company would then expect to benefit from the combined operations and economies of scale.
ESP : Empiric buys the Ballet School in Glasgow