IQ Student has bought a site once earmarked for a 430K SF super-green office in southern central London out of receivership.

The student accommodation specialist, which was bought by Blackstone for £4.7B in 2020, acquired the former site of Blackfriars Crown Court at a discount to the value of the debt secured against it, Bloomberg reported.

Developer Fabrix was previously developing a scheme called Roots in the Sky on the site, a high-spec office that would have featured a roof canopy with 125 trees, 10,000 plants and 1,000 tonnes of soil.

A company controlled by the Reuben brothers was the lender to the scheme, which had a charge of £70M outstanding against it when it went into receivership in November last year, Bloomberg said.

Fabrix bought the site just before the pandemic, which postponed the development of the scheme and contributed to rapid cost inflation.

Blackstone has grown iQ from 28,000 beds to 35,000 in the 4.5 years since it bought the company. It is spending £425M to build three schemes in Glasgow, Manchester and Warwick that will add another 3,000 beds.

The size of a student scheme on the Blackfriars site has not been specified.