Retirement giant Generus Living Group wins fast-track consent for 13-level block at $500m Parnell village

The large new planned retirement building to be built by Generus Group on the Parnell site. This has just won approval. Photo / Environmental Protection Authority

Graham Wilkinson’s national retirement village business Generus Living Group has won approval for a 13-level Auckland apartment block at a $500 million project where Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this year opened the first new building.

The Environmental Protection Authority said today an expert consenting panel chaired by Helen Andrews approved the block at 10 and 16 Titoki St and 4 Maunsell Rd, Parnell.

Generus is developing The Foundation retirement village on land Wilkinson’s business has leased from the charitable entity Blind and Low Vision with a joint venture arrangement made between the two.

Several of The Foundation apartment licences to occupy sold for $3m to $4m, which Wilkinson said set a retirement village price record in New Zealand.

The former Blind Foundation operated from the site for decades, headquartered in the historic Jubilee Building on Parnell Rd and to continue in a new building to be built on the site.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon with Graham Wilkinson at The Foundation in March. Wendy Petrie (right) was MC at the gala event in Parnell. Photo / Alex Burton

Documents from the panel show the new apartment block will be 11 to 13 levels high, have 65 apartments and was designed by architects Peddlethorp, which also designed the first new building.

The first two buildings making up The Foundation have already been approved in separate resource consents.

Last October, residents started moving into building one, officially opened by Luxon in March.

Construction of building two is under way beside that.

As well, refurbishment of the existing Pearson House on the site is under way. That includes seismic strengthening and the provision of communal facilities for people at The Foundation.

Luxon opened The Foundation, a retirement village in Parnell, Auckland. Photo / Alex Burton

The new 11- to 13-storey building is the third to be developed on the leased site. It will be 48.8m high and will include plant and lift services.

Reception, lounges, bar, cafe, therapy, salon, pool, health and wellness centre, library and outdoor amenity areas are planned to be part of that third new building, according to the document from the expert consenting panel.

A pedestrian airbridge is planned between level one of Pearson Residences and the second building on the site.

The wider site and 8 Domain Drive make up 1.5ha and are bounded by Parnell Rd, Titoki St, Maunsell Rd, and George St.

The Foundation retirement village. Photo / Alex Burton

In terms of its most recent or post-colonial history, The Foundation block has been owned and used by the Auckland Jubilee Institute for the Blind and successor organisations since the early 1890s, the panel said.

The buildings and other facilities established on The Foundation block by 1933 had included workshops, the Jubilee Buildings on the George St/Parnell Rd corner and Pearson House on Titoki St.

All three buildings are scheduled as Category A historic heritage places in the Auckland Unitary Plan and included in the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga list.

Generus Living Group says it has six retirement villages. Those are:

1. Parnell’s The Foundation;
2. Three Kings’ Ranfurly Village;
3. Mt Maunganui’s Pacific Lakes Village;
4. Mt Maunganui’s Pacific Coast Village;
5. Fendalton’s Holly Lea Village;
6. Burnside’s Russley Village.

In March, Luxon praised Wilkinson, saying he had contributed significantly by forming a successful joint venture with Blind and Low Vision NZ.

The large new planned retirement building to be built by Generus Group on the Parnell site. This has just won approval. Photo / Environmental Protection Authority

Together, they formed Foundation Properties which has developed Nathan Residences, the first of four planned buildings within the village.

“The vision and the way you worked with your partner here has been absolutely brilliant,” Luxon told Wilkinson and guests at the opening.

Wilkinson told guests then that the inspiration for The Foundation was the Chelsea Barracks in London’s Belgravia, a redevelopment of Victorian infantry battalion residences.

Back when the first new block at The Foundation was under construction. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The new Parnell village had been in planning for several years, he said, and is beside Tāmaki Paenga Hira the Auckland War Memorial Museum and Auckland Domain.

Four buildings are to comprise The Foundation, of which one new one has been completed. They are:

1. Nathan Residences, 541 Parnell Rd, a five-level block with 46 apartments built by Kalmar Construction. First residents moved in last October, officially opened by PM Christopher Luxon in March this year. Blind Low Vision NZ has new ground-level space there. Licences to occupy sold from $1.5m to $4m. Named after two Nathans who were chairmen of the Royal Foundation of the Blind;
2. Abbott Residences, Maunsell Rd, construction of a five-level block with 60 units is under way by Kalmar Construction on the site where Blind and Low Vision’s headquarters once stood. The new building is named after John Abbott, who established the Jubilee Institute for the Blind in 1890. Due to be finished in 2026. Generus has had inquiries on units whose occupation rights agreements would sell for $50m, it said today;
3. Pearson House, 10 Titoki St, opened in 1926, a brick Georgian revival structure, category one, Heritage New Zealand where refurbishment and seismic strengthening work is now under way. Due to be finished in this year’s third quarter;
4. Pearson Residences, the new 13-level building just approved via fast-track consenting, at 4 Maunsell Rd and inclusive of 16 Titoki St. A wellness centre, restaurant and bar, two levels of aged-care hospital and memory support care are planned. The fast-track application from Bentley & Co says all up, 65 units are planned in a building to be 48m tall.

The Foundation is not due to be finished till 2028 when about 250 people will live there “with development costs approaching $500m”, a Generus statement said.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.