Fund launch and partnership start Coima in social housing
Milan-headquartered property investor Coima is expanding into social and subsidised housing in Italy and has launched a new social housing fund while also forming a partnership with a consortium of housing cooperatives.
The closed-end Coima Housing Fund, dedicated to the sustainable living, will develop a range of social and subsidised housing types and student accommodation and has a target size of more than €400m. The initial scheduled closing will be at around €300m and the primary investor and sponsor is the Coima ESG City Impact Fund (CECIF), Italy’s largest dedicated urban regeneration fund.
Banking group Intesa Sanpaolo will also invest in Coima Housing Fund, as part of its mission to support the development of 8,000 social housing homes for young people and seniors.
Coima’s partnership with the consortium, Consorzio Cooperative Lavoratori (CCL), is aimed at providing a new model for the development of social and subsidised housing, which formerly tended to be left to the public sector.
The partnership will bring together housing co-operatives with private investors to develop innovative residential projects throughout Italy. The focus will be on mixed-use sustainable urban developments that integrate different types of social and subsidised housing.
Coima Housing could deliver up to 25% of the current need for social housing in the City of Milan, roughly estimated at 40,000 homes. COIMA and CCL hope to foster the creation of a national investment platform for social housing initiatives, with a multiplier effect that could potentially reach up to 20 times the initial investment of COIMA ESG City Impact Fund.
Coima Housing’s first project will provide 320 homes as part of the regeneration of the Porta Romana railway yard (pictured above), home to the 2026 Winter Olympic Athletes’ Village.
Plans for Porta Romana, being developed by Coima SGR with co-investors Prada Holding, Covivio and the Coima ESG City Impact Fund envisage about 50,000 sq m of Social Residential Building (ERS). CCL and Coima Housing will develop both the ordinary subsidised housing component (225 housing units, measuring about 17,000 sq m) and the public residential building component (95 housing units of about 5,000 sq m).
Coima Housing will invest in the transformation of the Olympic Village (approximately 30,000 sq m), into student housing after the Games. The provision of 1,700 beds will help address a major shortage of high-quality student accommodation in Milan.
“The partnership between CCL and the cooperative world will enable complementary experiences and skills to be put to work in collaboration with key public and private stakeholders,” said Manfredi Catella, co-founder and chief executive of COIMA.
