$20m Coromandel resort planned

By ANNE GIBSON

Puka Park developer Rainer Hoehn is planning an exclusive $20 million Coromandel resort which he says will bring the European spa experience here.

Hoehn, who sold out of what is now the Mecure Grand Puka Park Resort at Pauanui in 2001, hopes to get planning permission on Thursday from the Thames Coromandel District Council to enable development of an extensive luxury resort which he says will cost $20 million to build but would be worth $10 million more on completion.

The businessman and former Lufthansa airlines pilot and his wife, Mareile Jerosch-Hoehn, hope The Orange Grove will open between Easter and September next year.

He has a conditional contract to buy 1.3ha on Hikuai Settlement Rd on the western outskirts of Pauanui from Hopper Developments for $1.2 million. The contract becomes unconditional on June 6.

Evans Young at Orewa-based Hopper Developments said the planned resort could create a renaissance at Pauanui, but it was just one of three large projects planned for the area. Other projects at Pauanui and Whitianga were also in the pipeline but had to remain secret in the meantime, he said.

"We think it's a very good concept. Rainer has a history of setting standards with Puka Park," Young said, adding that Hoppers had no involvement in the project apart from selling the land.

The three-level resort on a former citrus orchard overlooking Pauanui Waterways will have 54 units which Hoehn is marketing for between $395,000 and more than $1 million. He has initial deposits on seven units.

The resort could employ 60 people, have two restaurants seating 85 and 40 people, saunas, fitness centre, outdoor pool with waterfall, 25m lap pool and indoor pool encased in a glass dome.

Finance to develop the resort has come from Bridgecorp and Westpac and the building contractors are Watts & Hughes Construction of Auckland and Arthur Brown Construction of Hawera.