Canberra landmark gets second life as state-of-the-art seniors living village

11 July 2019

In an industry first, the CEFC is financing a seniors’ living project which will see a disused Canberra office park transformed into a state-of-the-art energy efficient village. The LDK Greenway Seniors’ Living Village will be home to up to 450 people, creating a new model for sustainability for Australia’s rapidly growing retirement living and aged care sectors.

The CEFC’s $60 million investment is a significant addition to its existing $470 million residential portfolio, which already includes student, community and build-to-rent housing.

LDK Greenway Seniors’ Living Village in Tuggeranong, Canberra will be owned and operated by LDK Healthcare, a joint venture between Cromwell Property Group and senior living operator Aspire Group.

The Village will include more than 380 apartments and a range of self-contained community amenities, including a corner store and café, 130-seat auditorium, meeting and learning spaces, community and private dining areas, gardens, a chapel and car parking. The Village will feature market-leading sustainability standards in seniors’ living, which are expected to more than halve greenhouse gas emissions compared to current building standards.

CEFC CEO Ian Learmonth said: “We are delighted to see our finance being used to cut emissions in the retirement living and aged care sector, which is experiencing strong growth as Australians live longer and healthier lives.

“This investment is a great example of how we can cut emissions across every sector of our economy, benefiting our environment, lowering our energy use and cutting our emissions.

“It’s also exciting to see the property sector recycling buildings, giving large-scale assets such as commercial office buildings a second life in an environmentally-friendly manner.”

Cromwell Property Group Chief Investment Officer, Rob Percy said: “As today’s investors factor in ESG considerations as part of their decision making, this approach is becoming the expected minimum standard of good investment practice.”

“Our longstanding sustainability framework is helping meet these considerations and we are pleased to work with the CEFC to ensure LDK Greenway in Tuggeranong benefits from a range of sustainability initiatives.”

LDK Healthcare CEO Byron Cannon added: “We are committed to developing an industry-leading, innovative design for seniors living communities with a focus on service levels and providing retirees and the ageing population with comfort and care.”

The LDK Greenway Seniors’ Living Village will include:

• More than 700kw of solar PV across rooftops and car parking areas
• Energy efficient lighting and smart controls
• An emphasis on high efficiency heating, ventilation and air conditioning and the use of heat recovery systems and electric heat pumps
• Improved wall, underfloor and roof insulation, as well as high-performance window glazing.

This is the CEFC’s first investment in a seniors’ living project, and complements its clean energy investments in community, student and build-to-rent housing. The CEFC is also an active investor in clean energy projects to revitalise B and C-grade commercial office buildings.

CEFC Property Sector Lead Chris Wade said: “LDK Greenway in Tuggeranong provides a great example of how repurposed commercial building stock can have a second life with significantly higher energy efficiency and substantially lower emissions.

“The emissions savings for this retirement and aged care village are expected to reach almost 30,000 tonnes over the lifecycle of the development.

“Across the property sector, we see the repurposing of commercial office space as an untapped opportunity. Recycling existing buildings avoids the carbon and financial cost of demolition and new construction and is likely to become increasingly attractive to investors, owners and developers as we pursue net zero carbon across the built environment.”

ABOUT CROMWELL

Cromwell Property Group (ASX:CMW) is a real estate investor and manager with operations on three continents and a global investor base. As at 31 December 2018, Cromwell had a market capitalisation of $2.2 billion, a direct property investment portfolio in Australia valued at $2.5 billion and total assets under management of $11.5 billion across Australia, New Zealand and Europe.