On Monday, TPG Real Estate Partners, the real estate arm of of global alternative investment firm TPG and manager of $5.6 billion in client assets in real estate alone, announced that its German office platform, Deutsche Office Properties (DOP), has agreed to a new long-term lease with a renowned–and, intriguingly, unnamed–German government institution.
The tenant has signed a new ten-year lease for a 19,000 sqm site within DOP’s TechnologiePark in Cologne. Per TREP, the deal marks one of the most important leasing transactions that has been signed in Cologne over the last 12 months. The site includes 13,000 sq. meters of office space and more than 500 parking units, and is proximate to the TechnologiePark station, which provides a direct rail link to Cologne Central Station. The site was previously occupied by one of the major automotive brands for more than ten years.
TREP acquired the site as part of the TechnologiePark asset portfolio that it bought from Swedish private real assets investor EQT in December 2019, which is managed by KORE Capital. TechnologiePark currently comprises seven Grade A properties spanning approximately 116,000 sqm and serves a prominent group of blue-chip corporate and government tenants with long-term rental agreements.
“This new long-term lease with such a top tier tenant is a strong endorsement not only of the quality within our German office platform, but also TREP’s thematic conviction in Cologne as city with attractive fundamentals and growth potential,” TREP partner Michael Abel said upon announcing the deal on Monday. “The agreement adds to TREP’s existing base of government tenants and reinforces TechnologiePark’s status as a leading collection of Grade A office assets in Germany.”
Last month, TREP announced the launch of a fourth industrial real estate platform, to be called 4i, to focus on commercial properties in the post-Brexit U.K. The new venture was developed in partnership with industrial real estate investor Derek Heathwood, and has already acquired several multi-let industrial properties in strategic locations in the U.K.’s North West, Yorkshire, West Midlands, and South East regions.
