Client Challenges

The University of Cambridge aspired to bring forward the East Forum project at their West Cambridge Campus.  The development was to comprise a new café, meeting space, accommodation for very early stage businesses and office accommodation for the University (known as the Hauser Forum) and a 4,000 sq m office building for commercial businesses (known as the Broers Building).

The University wanted to develop the facilities using donor funding and with the private sector taking on development risk and funding the remainder. 

Our Solutions

We advised the University on a competitive programme to select a development partner (Turnstone Estates Ltd) and advised on the agreements necessary to ensure the partner project managed the development of the Hauser Forum and funded and took development and letting risk on the Broers Building.

Results

The developer successfully built both buildings and let the majority of the accommodation within the Broers building to R&D businesses working alongside the University.  The University subsequently re-acquired the long-leasehold interest using pre-emption rights written into the agreement.