Scape Readies $50m Student Accommodation Project

Student accommodation operator Scape Australia is pressing ahead with plans for a $50-million project in Melbourne’s inner-city suburb of Carlton.  

Scape, the largest student accommodation owner and operator in the country, is planning a 15-level development at 130 Leicester Street, a 975sq m site, currently occupied by a four-storey warehouse-converted-office, purchased from Oxfam for $15 million in mid-2021.

The development will feature 300 premium student housing apartments, in one and two-bedroom apartments, as well as a rooftop retreat, outdoor terraces, shops, cafe, basement and a new laneway between Leicester Street and Leicester Place.

The building will include sophisticated communal areas including; kitchens, bathrooms, laundries, breakout spaces, and landscaped areas, which Scape said would “foster greater community engagement” within the building. 

The site is within a dense collective of existing student accommodation buildings, with at least eight close to neighbouring Melbourne University, RMIT, Melbourne Law School, Queen Victoria Market and the CBD.

Scape Australia’s proposed project, designed by BayleyWard and Resolve Insight, will sit alongside an existing Unilodge complex at 108-128 Leicester Street, which was completed in 2014. Unilodge, majority owned by private equity firm Pamoja Capital, the backer of Cedar Pacific, is now the country’s second-largest PBSA provider.

Scape Australia, headed up by Craig Carracher, landed approval from Melbourne City Council for the project shortly after purchasing the site before amending plans earlier this year.

Scape Australia chief executive Anouk Darling told The Urban Developer the project would mark the developer’s 34th building in its portfolio and twelth in Melbourne.

“The second semester has seen a bounce in international student arrivals, our buildings are thriving and looking to the future we will be adding to our already 100 strong team in Melbourne supporting this world-leading education destination,” Darling said. 

“Together with our investors we are excited to continue to deliver world class living and learning environments that will enhance and enrich the university of Melbourne precinct.”

▲ The existing four-storey warehouse-converted-office will now be razed for a 14-level student accommodation building. Image: BayleyWard, Resolve Insight

Construction spearheaded by Kapitol Group is due to commence soon with completion earmarked for the end of 2023.

Scape, which launched in 2013, became the biggest purpose-built student accommodation owner and operator following its acquisition of the Atira and Urbanest Australia portfolios in 2019 and 2020 respectively for a combined $3 billion.

It currently has 16,000 beds in 33 buildings across Australia’s four key educational precincts—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. 

It has a further 12 buildings in planning and development, adding 22,000 extra beds to its portfolio by the end of 2024.

Prior to the pandemic, Australia had the second-highest number of enrolled international students worldwide, despite having a relatively limited amount of good quality purpose-built student accommodation relative to other global education hubs.

Two years of closed borders and temporary disruption to the student accommodation sector has now created a rare opportunity for developers eyeing the student accommodation sector to aggregate sites to be delivered after the market recovers.

Earlier this year, global investment giant Brookfield made its first investment into the student accommodation sector in Australia taking over a similarly positioned development site in Carlton.

Its development, of around 400 beds on the corner of Bouverie and Grattan streets, will be overseen by local property platform Citiplan alongside experienced operator Journal Student Living, which will run the facilities.

Meanwhile, Cedar Pacific has two high-rise student accommodation buildings under construction in the Melbourne CBD: a 656-bed tower overlooking Queen Victoria Market and a 715-bed tower on La Trobe Street.

All are close to campuses of the University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Technology, La Trobe University and RMIT.