German asset manager Commerz Real has acquired the student apartment complex Stoneybatter Place in Dublin for its Institutional Smart Living Europe Fund. The seller is Harrison Street Asset Management, represented by Savills Ireland. It was agreed that confidentiality be maintained regarding the purchase price.
Stoneybatter Place was completed in 2023 and has 142 beds. In addition to the furnished
apartments, it offers learning and lounge areas, a gym, as well as rooftop terraces. The operator is – and will remain – Mezzino, a company that specialises in student living in Ireland and Great Britain, and which also manages the residential complex Grangegorman House in Dublin acquired by the fund in 2025. The decisive factor for the investment in Dublin was according to the real assets subsidiary of German Commerzbank above all the long-term positive fundamental data of the location.
Thus the real estate consultant Savills assumes in its “Development Land Market Review” from 2025 that there is an excess demand of 25,000 to 30,000 student living apartments in the Irish capital. At the same time, in its recently published “Projections of Demand for Higher Education 2025-2045”, the responsible Ministry for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science expects to see a further increase of 19 per cent in the total number of students in Ireland through to 2034.
The residential complex is virtually fully leased and is located in the eponymous Stoneybatter district, an inner-city quarter to the west of the city centre which has developed into a sought-after residential area in recent years. The campus of Technological University Dublin is in walking distance, and there are connections to other higher education sites and the city centre using two tramlines and several bus routes.
The open-ended special AIF Commerz Real Institutional Smart Living Fund invests in student accommodation and micro-apartment complexes in European metropolises and university cities on behalf of professional and semi-professional investors. In addition to the two properties in Dublin, the portfolio currently encompasses three further residential complexes in Frankfurt am Main, Seville and Vienna.
Commerz Real buys a further residential student complex in Dublin for institutional real estate fund
About Commerz Real
Commerz Real AG is the asset manager of Commerzbank Group and has 54 years of international market experience. The company combines comprehensive asset management expertise with broad structuring capabilities, developing tangible asset-oriented fund products and individual investment solutions in the areas of real estate and infrastructure. As the leasing service provider of Commerzbank, Commerz Leasing also offers tailored leasing concepts.
Since 2025, the asset management subsidiaries of Commerzbank Group have been bundled under Commerz Real AG. In addition to the Commerz Real brands and products, these include Aquila Capital, with a focus on real asset investments in the energy infrastructure sector, as well as Yellowfin Asset Management, a boutique for liquid investment strategies. Under the umbrella of Commerz Real AG, a total of approximately 1,000 employees at around 20 locations manage assets of more than 55 billion billion.