Urban Creation: A Year in the Life

About Us

For almost 20 years, we have been developing stylish, well-designed properties that combine period architecture with modern techniques in construction and design. Based in Bristol, we are passionate about property and create homes that people want to stay in time and time again.

By injecting new life into often under- utilised, neglected, and complex sites right in the heart of Bristol, Urban Creations aim is to make a significant, positive difference to the city by supporting tourism, retail, business, and the student economy through its developments. 

Our business is forever growing, and whilst it has developed tremendously in the past two decades, we’re here to tell you everything that’s been going on in the past year alone…and get ready, it’s a lot!

Construction 

Urban Creation have bought 3 new properties: 60 Queens Road as well as 48 and 71 Park Street. We redeployed our own equity to purchase these sites and begin construction on all sites. 

In December 2022 (albeit not in the past year although it is relevant) we set up our own Construction business, Clever Space, with the intention of keeping all our construction work in house; and keeping with our local contractor ethos and Bristol based professionals’ policy. This enables us to deliver construction projects as cost efficiently and quickly as possible. 

Clever Space have had a brilliant, and busy, first few months being the integral foundation behind all 3 recent construction projects: 60 Queens Road as well as 48 and 71 Park Street. 

From February 2023 to July 2023, we completed our large construction project to transform 60 Queens Road into 6 luxury apartments.

On top of this we have been working on 54 & 56 Park Street to create contemporary student accommodation comprising of 6 student flats housing 14 bedrooms all with en-suite’s within the existing footprint. With our completion deadline set for the end of 2023 – we already have 50+ tenant enquiries.

Urban Creation have massively increased our student and serviced apartment portfolio.

We have more than doubled our revenue with top and bottom revenue growth.

Growth

With us now running 3 businesses under the Urban Creation umbrella – Urban Apartments, Urban Student and Clever Space; we have seen growth in all areas.

One area of growth being our headcount. We have more than doubled our headcount in the past 12 months.

Our marketing team have been working hard on a new marketing campaign to separate our three businesses. This includes lots of being the scenes work which we are extremely excited to share with the public soon.

Innovation

With new employees comes new ideas and innovate ideas. During this time, we have collaborated with Duve.com to create an exclusive guest app. This app allows our guests access to their apartment, information regarding their stay, safety features and exclusive discounts to local businesses we are partnered with. You can learn all about our app here.

The aim for this app was to make our guests experience as seamless as possible. 

We have continually worked on making our guest experience seamless. With introducing around the clock customer service, introducing our new exclusive app as well as partnering with local businesses offering discounted services and opportunities to create a memorable stay for our guests.

We are constantly moving with the times, particularly technology; we have recently implemented an app which provides our guest with all emergency information they need for their stay, as well as a private key card to access their apartment. Despite us being on hand 24/7, this ensures our guests maximum privacy and security.

We also go above and beyond to ensure we are environmentally conscious. Urban Creation’s projects are future-proofed and sustainable, with all properties exceeding the 20% renewable energy target set by Bristol City Council. Measures include ‘clever’ heating systems, enhanced insulation, plus its bid to cut its use of single use plastic. 

What a year…and it’s not over yet!

A massive thank you to the entire team for their continued hard work – it couldn’t be done without you all! We’re excited to share our ongoing Urban Creation journey with you.

Published: Monday 27th November by Phoebe Clutton