St Vincent’s Plaza

At the time of entering into the transaction there was very limited, if any, commercial bank finance available for speculative property development in Scotland. The project is an example of the SPRUCE fund helping to address market failure in the provision of mainstream commercial finance to Scottish property transactions, and it assists with the delivery of the Scottish Government’s long term regeneration aims and objectives.

The project has created low carbon business space and also employment and training opportunities through both the construction period and the operational phase of the asset’s life. The majority of floors in the building have been successfully let to a variety of high quality tenants, and the project has gone some way to stimulating further commercial real estate development within the central Glasgow core.

• Amber invested in this asset as it met the objectives of the SPRUCE fund.
• Amber is the Fund Manager to the Scottish Partnership for Regeneration in Urban Centres (SPRUCE) which is an Urban Development Fund (UDF) that supports regeneration and green energy projects throughout Scotland. The fund provides an innovative source of finance to eligible projects which are aligned to the Scottish Government’s regeneration and green energy strategies. Amber has been managing SPRUCE since its inception in 2011.
• SPRUCE is a recyclable regeneration and energy efficiency fund, sourced from the Scottish Government, the European Investment Bank and the private sector, and is an innovative source of finance for projects that deliver outcomes aligned to key Scottish Government policy objectives.
• SPRUCE supports a wide range of urban regeneration activity within well-defined, integrated, sustainable urban development plans. The Fund’s Investment Policy seeks projects in the following sectors: 
  • Rehabilitation of the physical environment
  • Construction of new buildings and/or renovation of existing ones and associated site specific infrastructure and servicing
  • Training and e-learning centres, including investment to increase ICT access
  • Creation of safe transport links between areas of opportunity and areas of need
  • Energy efficiency retrofit works delivering energy savings of at least 20% per annum
  • Energy production from renewable energy and low carbon technologies