Shane Brealey on NZ Living’s new $90 million three-level Northcote development. Video / NZ Herald
Auckland central-city apartment numbers will soon be eclipsed by suburban numbers, a new study from agents CBRE has found.
Tamba Carleton, associate research director, said the CBD now has 21,253 units but fringe and suburban areas have 20,604.
But in five weeks’ time, there will be more units outside theCBD than in it.
“Auckland’s move towards being a denser, more apartment-friendly city is progressing. The total number of fringe and suburban apartments is set to overtake those in the CBD,” she said today.
Northcote has the highest number of new units nearing completion: 214 apartments.
Shane Brealey of NZ Living this month unveiled his new $90 million project on Greenslade Cres, Northcote, where he said most places sold within three minutes in 2021, partly because they were only $500,000-$600,000 each in a city where the median is more than $1m.
Carleton said NZ Living Greenslade Cres was one of the projects included in the 872 units rising in suburban areas.
Around half the 129 units in nine buildings on a 1ha ex-Kāinga Ora block surrounded by four streets went in a public tender situation, with Shane and Anne Brealey keeping 42 places. Of the 129 units, 56 were developed under the Government’s KiwiBuild programme and 31 were sold on free market terms.
Carleton said suburban units were “indicative of Auckland’s long-term future of a denser residential environment”.
She cited the Unitary Plan.
Kāinga Ora is also building thousands of new units on state housing land, demolishing blocks on large sites to build up and out to answer a growing need for more state housing.
“Kāinga Ora ramped up their supply pipeline in 2018 and it’s been stable at around 30 to 35 apartment projects on the go at any one time since then. It is big.
“But there’s still a lot of other developers building apartments as well. There’s a total of 141 Auckland apartment projects where units are planned to be finished from this year to 2025,” she said.
The 872 units in 20 suburbs is made up of 28 projects. Nine of those projects are by Kāinga Ora including at Māngere where there are four as well as in Northcote, Manurewa, Glenfield, and Mount Wellington, she said.
The broader apartment pipeline of 7070 units is in 131 projects, due for completion between now and the end of 2025. Of those, 33 are by Kāinga Ora, she said.
Avondale will get 119 new units by the end of next month, Manurewa 97, Browns Bay 53, Orewa and Glenn Innes 48 each, Papakura 46, Mt Albert 36, Glenfield 34, Mt Roskill 21, Howick 19, Mangere East and Remuera 15 each, Meadowbank 13, Pukekohe 12, Papatoetoe 11, St Johns 10 and St Heliers five.
Developer Richard Kroon at his new apartment development. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Luxury apartments are rising in Remuera where Richard Kroon is finishing his $150m Victoria Ave places.
Ron Macrae’s CMP Construction is due to finish this around October.
Kroon, who started out in the building business as a tradesman, says the five-level building will have 23 apartments, with 52 basement car parks running the full length underground.
The block is called Victoria Lane because it is on Victoria Ave and a narrow paved walkway or lane leads from the building directly to Remuera Rd.
A porte-cochere with a grand 7m internal height will connect two parts of the building and reception and dual lobbies lead off that.
Work is continuing apace at the $200m, 56-level Seascape apartment block on Customs St East in the CBD.
The tower will be New Zealand’s tallest at 187m above ground level, or 203m from the lowest foundation floor to the tower’s apex. That is higher than the 178m, 52-level $300m Pacifica tower a block away. However, the two projects are at very different phases - Pacifica has been finished for around two years while works continue at Seascape.
Private development business Ockham Residential headed by Mark Todd this month opened its 15th Auckland apartment building, completing 762 units in the city since it was founded 14 years ago in 2009.
Apartments in the 14-unit Koa Flats in Meadowbank sold from just over $500,000 to $900,000 each. Koa is the first of five developments the business plans to finish this year including Aroha, Alto, Manaaki and The Greenhouse.
During 2023, 481 new units are due to be completed and opened, a spokesman said, in an attempt to redress the city’s housing shortage.
Paul Majurey, Housing Minister Megan Woods and Mark Todd when a new Waterview apartment project was opened. Photo / Alex Burton
In around a month, the business plans to open Avondale’s new, much larger Aroha as its 16th block with 117 units, taking new unit numbers to 879.
Hundreds of new places are planned for ex-Unitec land at Ōwairaka Mt Albert. Marutūāhu chairman Paul Majurey said that entity was working with Ockham on the newly created, newly named suburb Maungārongo, beside Unitec and the old Carrington Hospital.
The Marutūāhu-Ockham Partnership plans work in the next 20 years within the larger Te Auaunga Precinct: nearly 40ha around the ex-hospital and neighbouring university being developed by three rōpū - Marutūāhu, Waiohua-Tāmaki and Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei.
Majurey said the almost 11ha share of Marutūāhu land would bring new mixed-use buildings to the established Ōwairaka Mt Albert community.
