In conversation with Pieter Feenstra
FEENSTRA GROUP
PBSA is a housing model designed exclusively for students, unlike converted apartments or buildings. It is a student-centric product featuring specific amenities such as study areas and common rooms. Crucially, it focuses on building a community through dedicated management and life programmes, offering a safe, supportive, and high-quality alternative to traditional, often inadequate ‘digs’. The decision to build the first PBSA-specific accommodation complex was bold. “I decided I was going to build the first one in South Africa, and in Pretoria specifically.” That first project, Hatfield
But his true pioneering moment was yet to come. After buying land in Sunnyside, Pretoria, he identified a glaring gap in the market: the lack of safe, quality, and well- located purpose-built student housing. Pioneering purpose-built student accommodation The concept of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) was virtually non-existent in South Africa in the early 2010s.
Pieter’s approach was methodical. He took the concept overseas, studying the mature market in the UK. “We spent a lot of time in the UK, London, and a few of the major UK cities, looking at what they were doing and how they were doing it. It was a totally new concept for South Africa which we brought back with us.”
Brooklyn Studios student accommodation in Pretoria
October 2025 | Issue 141 | Asset Magazine 135
134 Asset Magazine | Issue 141 | October 2025
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