Rue Saint Pierre 6, Fribourg, Switzerland

Rue Saint Pierre 6 is a multi-storey office building with a ground floor restaurant and public car park with a net leasable floor area of 6,700 sq.m. It is located close to Fribourg’s principal shopping center and less than 400 meters from the train station. The building was originally developed as a Co-Op department store. Following the store’s closure, it was leased to a variety of tenants with leases of varying lengths and covenant quality.

Westcore acquired the property in 2010, with a business plan to reconfigure and refurbish the existing vacant space and restructure a number of leases, either by extending or replacing incumbent tenants. Westcore allocated approximately CHF 3 million from debt and equity to fund capital and tenant improvements. These included refurbishments of the public car parking and common areas, landscape upgrades, replacement of roof coverings, and renovation to approximately 60% of the leasable floor space.

Westcore sold the building in 2014 to an institutional investor, having improved gross income by 60%, with a weighted average lease term exceeding 11 years.