Real estate company, Amro Partners is developing two new student accommodation projects in Iberia – Madrid and Porto. The new development marks Amro’s first foray into Portugal, as the project will create student accommodation in Portugal’s second-largest city. Amro’s project will deliver an additional 367 dedicated student beds to the Iberian region

Amro Partners work in Spain

In Spain, Amro has developed projects in Granada, Malaga, Seville, Valencia and Pamplona. Amro’s new project in Madrid will be situated on a 5,600 sq m buildable plot in Getafe, a key residential municipality in the south of Madrid that will provide 216 student beds alongside shared facilities including a canteen with outdoor space, study rooms, co-working spaces gyms and an outdoor pool.

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), has a local population of 18,000 students and is the second-highest-ranking Spanish public university and is within a five-minute walk of the property.  The Universidad Rey Juan Carlos’s Leganés Campus and Hospital Universitario de Getafe both nearby.

Amro Partners ventures into Portugal for the first time

As they enter Portugal for the first time, Amro will develop a project in the Paranhos area of Porto. The new student accommodation will be located within Porto’s main university hub, Polo II University Campus (Asprela), which houses more than 35,000 students. This will be a 151-bed scheme that will have a mixture of individual studios, twodios and doubles with amenities including study rooms, terraces, gym, MasterChef room, padel court and outdoor green areas. Five higher education institutions are situated within a 5 to 15 minutes walk: University of Porto, University Fernando Pessoa, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Catholic University of Porto and Portucalense University.

Amro’s future plans

The Porto and Madrid properties will open in summer 2023 and will be operated under the Amro Estudiantes brand. To meet Amro’s Net Zero Carbon 2030 pledge, the properties will be designed to target a BREEAM “Outstanding” rating.

Raj Kotecha, co-founder and managing director of Amro Partners, said: “We have achieved an extraordinary period of growth that has seen us realise our ambition to become a truly pan-Iberian business in just three years. The student housing market in Iberia remains critically underserved and, crucially, has proved itself to be resilient over the last fifteen months. Our projects in Madrid and Porto ensure we continue to successfully capture meaningful early market share and we remain focused on growing our presence in the region with further student and multifamily housing opportunities in the pipeline.”