Amro acquires new student housing project in Lisbon

The building will be situated in the heart of NOVA University Lisbon’s new Innovation District, a project aiming to create a new global city in Almada centred around sustainability, innovation and technology, with plans for its FCT campus to become a business hub with 250,000 sqm of new infrastructure and development creating 17,000 jobs. Lisbon is home to c.120,000 students with the ratio of students in need of accommodation to purpose-built beds currently at around 6:1.

We are committed to growing our Iberian platform with a strategic focus on key cities across Spain and Portugal where the shortage of high-quality student housing is most acute. We recently completed on our first site acquisition in Portugal, located in Porto, where we will bring forward a 152-bed project as developer and operator working with an investment partner.

Consolidating our position as a pan-European PBSA developer and operator, Amro Partners’ Iberian portfolio now stands at over 2,100 beds, with further acquisitions expected to be closed shortly. In line with our NZC2030 pledge, Amro’s Lisbon and Porto projects will be two of the most sustainable buildings in Portugal upon completion, far exceeding country regulations.

Co-Founder and Managing Director Raj Kotecha said: “We’re committed to delivering market-leading student accommodation in the best possible locations and Lisbon is an important city for us as we seek to grow our presence in the Iberian residential living sector. The recent launch of NOVA University Lisbon’s Innovation District is driving forward an uncompromising focus on sustainability which, alongside the shortfall of quality student housing, has created the opportunity for us to deliver another market-leading Net Zero Carbon asset.”

Lisbon is the eighth student housing project undertaken by Amro Partners in Iberia since launching in the region in mid-2018, with a total GDV of circa €235 million. Well-established in the UK Build to Rent sector, we expect to make a debut in the region’s burgeoning multifamily housing market in the first half of 2022.