The steel framing of the original transport hub on Harington St. Photo / Zoe Hunter
Groundworks for a multimillion-dollar hotel and parking development bringing 200 public car parks to Tauranga's CBD at the site of a failed transport hub have been given the green light.
Business leaders say the "skeleton-like" framing of the original transport hub was a painful reminder of past mistakes and extra off-road parking spaces will help fill the CBD's parking stock that had suffered a "real blow".
The Tauranga City Council issued a building consent valued at $4 million for the building's foundations structure last month. It was among 190 residential and commercial building consents issued that month, together valued at more than $96.8 million.
The council abandoned the partially built Harington St transport hub previously planned for the site after expert advice that it had serious structural issues.
In 2020 it decided it was "not financially feasible" to remediate the construction of the 550-park building and last year decided not to demolish it.
Instead, the council sold the site for $1 to developers Waibop (Harrington) Limited, a subsidiary of the lead project contractor and builder, Watts & Hughes Construction Group Holdings Limited.
The agreement meant the new owners would take over responsibility for the property and existing structure. Any new building would have to provide at least 200 public car parking spaces.
The new owners plan to turn the site into a 14-storey development, with a total of 359 parking spaces including 200 public parks, and a four-star hotel.
Watts & Hughes managing director Craig Watts said they received building consent for the structural foundations of the carpark building a couple of weeks ago and were finalising costs on that now.
"We should see a real start on site within the next two to three weeks."
Watts said they were in the process of gaining consent for the architectural designs.
"We are looking for completion of the carpark by October next year."
The carpark building would be completed before the hotel.
Watts previously said the development was predicted to cost between $75 million and $80m.
Sarbjeet Kaur, who owns Kings Dairy and the Vape Shop on Willow St with husband Davinder Singh, said more car parks was good news for the CBD.
"It will be easier for people to come here, otherwise it is very hard to find a park."
Kaur said her husband opens the shop before 7am and parks a few blocks away near the police station on Monmouth St where the closest free parking was.
Bronco's Outdoors employee Masa Azuma said he too parked a few blocks from the Willow St store where there was free parking on Dive Cres.
"Our customers need the car parks," he said.
Store owner Ben Tuck said Bronco's Outdoors was a "destination shop" and customers liked to park close by.
"The extra parks won't have much of an effect on us personally but it will take more cars off the street and make more parks for our customers in front of the shop."
Mainstreet Downtown Tauranga chairman Brian Berry said it was "fantastic news" to hear a start date for the new development was imminent.
"The failure of the original transport hub project on that site was a real blow to a CBD that had lost significant numbers of car parks to re-purposing outdoor car parking sites and developments.
"Apart from circa-525 car parks, the transport hub was also going to provide facilities for cyclists, encouraging alternative forms of transport other than motor vehicles.
"An additional 200 off-road public car parks will be a welcome addition to the car parking stock in the CBD."
Berry said this and the redevelopment of the site bordered by Willow, Hamilton and Harington St for the council's Civic Precinct site (Te Manawataki o Te Papa) would complement each other and further reflect the "coming of age" of the Tauranga CBD.
"The end game for the Tauranga CBD is excellent and certainty regarding the future of the council's Civic Precinct site and their upper Devonport Rd site for the Civic Administration Building has been one of the catalysts for the private sector to push forward with their mooted developments."
The inclusion of a four-star hotel in the development was a bonus, given the shortage of high-quality inner city short-stay accommodation, he said.
"Disruption associated with these almost adjacent three large projects is unavoidable, and council and the developers should be working hard to mitigate potential accessibility and circulation problems for that part of the CBD."
Tauranga Business Chamber chief executive Matt Cowley said it was great to hear the site was progressing.
"The skeleton-like framing is a painful reminder of the mistakes from the past, which I'm sure we all want to move on from."
Cowley said the council's business case for the Harington hub made sense in 2016, and it would have only improved with its decision to remove more car parks around the city centre, such as the waterfront.
"Off-street car parks have been highly sought after as car parks across the city become scarce.
"I am being told that there is interest from organisations to move into the city centre, subject to prospective tenants also finding some lease car parks for their fleet vehicles."
Tauranga City commissioner Stephen Selwood said the council welcomed plans to redevelop the site.
Selwood said the new development will provide extra off-street public parking in the city centre, as well as parking for future users of the building.
"We also note that the other commercial uses planned for a much larger structure on this site will have significantly changed the viability of the development, compared with the situation the council faced when it decided that it was not financially feasible to remediate the building's seismic design deficiencies.
"The availability of 359 privately developed off-street car parks adds to the many initiatives under way or committed in the city centre and will help offset the loss of off-street parking on The Strand, when the current waterfront car park is redeveloped in the second half of next year to create a recreational space everyone in the city can enjoy and be proud of."
There were 190 residential and commercial building consents issued in September
valued at $96,898,173.
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