UPP will design, develop, finance and operate the University of Exeter’s Clydesdale & Birks Residential Project, with Graham as its construction contractor.
The project will develop more than 1,700 new student rooms, refurbish 300 existing bedrooms at Birks Grange and create a new grounds compound for the university.
UPP describes it as “the largest and most innovative on-campus Passivhaus scheme in the sector”.
Over the past decade or more, UPP has already developed – and now operates – more than 4,000 rooms for the university’s students. Once the new scheme is delivered, UPP will be operating more than 6,000 rooms on the Streatham campus.
UPP and the university will now work to reach financial close by the summer of 2023. Following this, Graham will immediately start construction, with the first phase due to become operational for the 2025/26 academic year. The wholly completed development should be ready in September 2026.
To create the new bedrooms, UPP will demolish buildings in the Clydesdale Nash and Birks Village area to make way for new residences, as well as refurbishing catered rooms in the Birks Grange Village to convert them to self-catered.
University registrar and secretary Mike Shore-Nye said: “The project supports our ambitious aims to achieve carbon neutrality and, working with UPP, we are aiming to reduce our impact on the environment and ecology in the area, whilst using sustainable materials and construction practices to achieve strenuous Passivhaus and BREEAM standards. This approach to development is crucial in our drive to reduce our carbon footprint and to lead the way for university accommodation across the country.
“Feedback from students living in UPP’s East Park residences, which completed in 2021, has been incredibly positive and we look forward to working in partnership with UPP on how these new residences on the west of Streatham Campus will take shape.”
The East Park development, which has 1,182 bedrooms, was built by Vinci under a £91m contract.
UPP chief executive Elaine Hewitt said: “This project is a great example of collaboration and innovation in action with the design and delivery of a truly leading edge, large scale Passivhaus scheme at Clydesdale and Birks, as well as retrofit of existing accommodation to EnerPHit standards. We look forward to working with the university to realise this scheme and provide its student residents with a fantastic, sustainable living and learning experience.”
UPP Group Holdings is a Jersey-registered real estate investment trust.
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