Nuveen Real Estate, one of the largest investment managers in the world with $149 billion of assets under management, has agreed to provide a €35m senior secured loan to Breakthrough Properties, a joint venture of Tishman Speyer and Bellco Capital, to finance the acquisition and construction of One Helix, a state-of-the-art life science asset in Amsterdam.
The asset is 100% pre-let to Neogene, a global, clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the discovery, development and manufacturing of next-generation engineered T cell receptor (TCR) therapies targeting a broad spectrum of solid cancers, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca. Once complete, it will provide a 5,155 sqm, five-storey, office and laboratory building in the south-east of Amsterdam within the medical cluster surrounding the Amsterdam University Medical Center (Amsterdam UMC). The location has been designated as a key life science development area by the municipality of Amsterdam and is the fastest growing life science cluster in the Netherlands. It benefits from an established life science base with an additional 100,000+ sqm of land available for high quality life science developments that will establish the park as the dominant life science hub in Amsterdam.
The development has been designed by award winning architect UNStudio to incorporate highest sustainability standards and integration with the Amsterdam UMC’s ambitious ESG goals. As such it will hold BREEAM “Outstanding” and BENG 2 certificates for sustainability, allowing the facility to be classified as a green loan. The scheme is also designed to support carbon negative operations and will be supplied with geothermal heating and cooling via an aquifer thermal energy storage system and PV panels on the roof to generate electricity.
The loan is provided by Nuveen’s pan-European debt strategy, the fourth in the European commercial real estate debt series. It represents the second investment for the strategy following an agreement of €54m to finance 3 logistics assets in Berlin for Valor. The strategy was launched in 2022 with c. €150m of initial capital secured from several German institutional investors alongside Nuveen’s parent, TIAA and discloses under Article 8 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.
Caroline Pellmann, Senior Director at Nuveen Real Estate, said: “The real estate debt market is still very competitive in the right geographies and sectors, so we are pleased to have partnered with Breakthrough Properties and Tishman Speyer to finance this state-of-the-art life sciences development. We are proud to be working with such highly experienced sponsors specialising in the life science space and we look forward to the next steps of this development.”
Tom Renn, Senior Vice President for Acquisitions and Development for Europe, at Breakthrough Properties, added: “Our ongoing collaboration with the Amsterdam University Medical Center and Neogene is emblematic of Breakthrough Properties’ commitment to supporting cutting edge science while also delivering top-quality, sustainable environments. We are grateful to the team at Nuveen Real Estate for helping us turn our vision for this facility into reality”
Nuveen Real Estate was advised by Greenberg Traurig for legal advice and JLL for valuations. Drees & Sommer will act as the technical advisor and project monitor for the development.
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