FreshStart to provide rooms for students

PROPERTY developer FreshStart Living has made its first foray across the Pennines by acquiring the former headquarters of Provident Financial.

The Salford-based firm acquired Colonnade House in Bradford and plans to transform the building into modern student accommodation. It wants to create 200 en-suite student bedrooms by refurbishing the nine-storey 1960s building on Sunbridge Road.

The £6.9m scheme is expected to start on site in January 2012 and will be delivered over three months.

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The student halls will range in size between 105 sq ft and 180 sq ft. Each floor will house 24 student rooms, four kitchens and communal areas. The ground floor has a further eight rooms.

The site is currently off-plan and rooms are available from £27,500 with anticipated rents of £80 to £85 per week.

Stuart Cook, acquisitions manager at FreshStart Living, said: “Student property is an asset class that rarely becomes available to individual investors and student rentals have remained robust with a recorded yearly growth of five per cent over the past six years.”