Casting his eye towards office blocks rising on Fanshawe St, Nigel McKenna smiles with quiet satisfaction.
“I’m told there will be between 1100 and 1200 people working in Vodafone House,” says the head of Melview Developments, looking towards the telco’s block nearing completion. “All good corporate people who will be looking for somewhere to live.”
The developer hopes many neighbouring workers will turn their eyes towards his apartment buildings as possible digs. The corporate headquarters of international groups KPMG, Sun Microsystems, ACP Media, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard, soon to be joined by Air New Zealand, surround McKenna’s residential and hotel waterfront project.
His expectation is that the workers will want to work, stay and play in the one area, not far from his Beaumont Quarter, which is almost finished. “I have $600 million worth of work on,” McKenna said last week, adding that he had no idea exactly how many units he was building in Auckland.
Across the other side of Auckland above Quay Park, McKenna is developing a twin for his UniLodge on Anzac, student-oriented rental units with common-area kitchens and bathrooms. The new block is UniLodge on Beach.
McKenna is also building The Grand, a controversial 24-level, 477-unit apartment block near the Hyatt Hotel, rising alongside the 17-level, 154-unit Connaught, whose residents tried to stop him. But his largest project is on a 1.6ha waterfront site owned by Viaduct Harbour Holdings.
“This is regarded as the prime site in the Viaduct – the city version of Devonport because it looks out towards the sea,” McKenna said of the land where apartment owners will be on seven-year rent reviews for the leasehold land.
Introducing more water into the site took two to three years to plan and obtain resource consent to allow a lock, bringing a waterway and marina to the area. The centre of the old Log Farm was excavated and will soon be flooded, almost doubling the number of units with waterfront views.
The lock will enable yachts and boats of up to 30ft to moor. The first apartment block, the 39-unit North, has drawn residents like millionaire Mercedes magnate Colin Giltrap and his wife, Jennifer, who bought a top-storey penthouse with extensive balconies.
McKenna also lives at North in a penthouse apartment next door to Giltrap and praises the location for its potential, indicating that some of the larger tenants surrounding North could soon move out of the area, opening up further development opportunities. “One beddies”, as McKenna calls them, sold in North for $440,000. “Two beddies” are 144sq m and have 11m balconies.
Marketing for Stratis opened on the weekend and work on the block will finish early next year. A three-bedroom unit on level five is selling for $2 million. Units have 5m by 3m terraces and those on all but the top level have full-height glass panels to shield decks. Stratis is designed to look like a container port. Its vertical architectural details refer to cranes, but also conceal flues for exterior deck gas fire-places. Its design is based on Hawaii’s lanai indoor-outdoor room concept.
A manager for the proposed 184-suite hotel at Lighter Quay is yet to be named and building work has not begun. Holiday Inn, owned by London-based Intercontinental Hotels Group, will operate McKenna’s new $65 million, 16-level 238-room hotel in Wellington, due to open in 2006. His 20,000 sqm Featherston Tower in Wellington is due to be finished next year.
