L&G's retirement arm writes its first U.S. development check

L&G's U.S. asset management business and Taurus Investment Holdings broke ground Thursday on a two-building, 201-unit apartment community at 292–294 Baker Ave. in Concord, Mass., a project whose first building will not deliver until the end of 2028; local officials, community representatives, and project partners were on hand. The investment is being made on behalf of L&G's Institutional Retirement business, which Connect CRE reports is funding its first new U.S. development; its multifamily book already holds The Alder in the Denver metro and Arkadia West Loop in downtown Chicago.

Site work is expected to begin this year, the first building is targeted for completion by the end of 2028, and the second follows in 2029. Nobody breaking ground in a Boston suburb this autumn is fighting the delivery wave that is leasing up right now; L&G and Taurus are buying a 2028-29 window on the expectation that apartment supply thins out, the split between the income half and the scarcity half of the apartment bid this publication has covered. Retirement money is built for that kind of wait; what is new is that this particular balance sheet has now put it into ground-up U.S. development rather than standing assets.

A quarter of the units will be affordable under Massachusetts Chapter 40B guidelines, and in a Greater Boston submarket Connect CRE describes as structurally undersupplied, that set-aside likely does entitlement work the market-rate math alone could not. It makes the subsidy a supply strategy rather than a concession — the sort of trade patient capital can make and merchant builders generally cannot. The coverage does not say what the project costs or how the two firms split the equity.

Taurus, meanwhile, arrives from the other end of the risk curve. PRED reported in September that the firm bought eight shallow-bay buildings near Laredo's World Trade Bridge, a trade underwritten by daily truck traffic; adding ground-up Boston apartments gives it two clocks running at once, one collecting rent from trucks today and one collecting rent from tenants in 2029.

The value-add half of the apartment market is setting a lower clearing basis off in-place rents, while the scarcity half pays for land and time. L&G just joined the second group, and the retirement arm's cost of capital lets it be early in a way a five-year fund cannot. The test arrives twice: the first building at the end of 2028, the second in 2029, both landing after the current wave clears. If they lease at underwritten rents, the template is set — and the next U.S. development check from this arm is the one worth tracking.