This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
ONE of the world’s largest student accommodation providers, Centurion Corporation, has snapped up a development site off Rundle St in Adelaide’s CBD.
The Singapore Exchange-listed player has acquired the site off Rundle Street on the eastern side for $3.5 million and plans to develop a new 280-bed student accommodation project with an end value of $45.5 million.
CEO Kong Chee Min said this is Centurion’s second Australian student accommodation asset as part of its plans to further grow the student accommodation business in Australia.
By the end of 2018, Centurion expects to have a total of almost 3,500 student accommodation beds across three key tertiary education hubs in Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Centurion is one of the largest student accommodation providers in the world, the group expects to increase its overall portfolio from 63,208 beds as at 31 December 2016 to 76,188 beds by the end of 2018.
Kong said the company will partner with Kyren Group to deliver the Adelaide project, which will operate under Centurion’s newly-launched student accommodation brand, dwell Adelaide. Construction is expected to be completed in 4Q 2018, catering to the student intake for the 2019 academic year.
Upon completion, dwell Adelaide will be Centurion’s second asset in Australia, after RMIT Village which was acquired in 2014, bringing the total number of its Australia student accommodation beds to 736.
Savills’ Conal Newland negotiated the transaction.
“This high quality student accommodation is being delivered as part of a mixed-use development called Frome Central which will include a hotel, serviced apartments and car park,” Newland said.
“Adelaide has strong fundamentals for the provision of direct let accommodation, with currently less than one PBSA bed provided for every 10 full-time students. This undersupply presents a clear opportunity for Centurion to establish its presence in Adelaide and continue growing its student accommodation business in Australia,” he added.
According to a Savills report, there are approximately 60,100 full time students in Adelaide’s universities, with approximately 2,300 and 3,000 PBSA beds provided by the universities and the private sector respectively.
Even with a pipeline of slightly over 1,100 beds, the expected supply of PBSA beds is anticipated to only cater to an estimated 11% of the total full-time student population in the city. The latest higher education enrolment data also indicates that the total number of international students studying in South Australia has increased by 1,254 in 2016, representing an increase of 7.7% in the last 12 months.
Australian Property Journal
