Tour 9 Redevelopment in the Montreuil Regeneration district Wins Grand Prix du SIMI Award

Paris – Global private equity firm, The Carlyle Group announces that its Tour 9 office redevelopment in Paris has won the Grand Prix du SIMI 2009 award for best “renovated building” category by a jury comprised exclusively of real estate directors from major French and international companies.

Tour 9 is the former headquarters of the French social security firm URSSAF (Unions de Recouvrement des Cotisations de Sécurité Sociale et d'Allocations Familiales) and was acquired by Carlyle’s second real estate fund (CEREP II) in 2006. It has subsequently been completely restructured and is now the flagship building for the ongoing regeneration and revival of the central Montreuil district, on the outskirts of eastern Paris. Tour 9 is now provides 35 000 sqm of offices spread over 26 floors and can accommodate 2550 people. It is also the first renovated office tower to be accredited with a “High Performance Energy” standard as defined by the French Construction and Housing Code.

The Carlyle Group engaged the architectural firm Hubert and Roy to take charge of the restructuring. Their intention was to create a high quality "urban design" which also met with Carlyle’s objective of providing qualitative and functional space to potential tenants.

Catherine Simoni, Carlyle Real Estate France Managing Director, commented: "We are proud to have been awarded the Grand Prix du SIMI for our Tour 9 project. We feel the building typifies our investment strategy of undertaking bold projects which provide an architectural challenge and generally lead the revival of an urban area within a major city.”

Tour 9 is within the "Coeur de ville" regeneration project which was started by the city of Montreuil several years ago under the management of the Portuguese architect and urban planner Alvaro Siza. The project was founded on a major urban principle which was to demolish much of the uniform architecture from the 1970s and replace it with public and pedestrian areas which follow the same contours as the natural surrounding land.

The town of Montreuil recently launched works on the city centre and aims to create a new modern, friendly landscape which is also respectful of today's modern living requirements. This new project has been renamed ''Quartier de la mairie” and will be executed according to a predefined schedule, culminating in the construction of a retail and leisure centre, as well as housing and office buildings that meet the highest environmental requirements.

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