Rick Martin has yet to get any takers for the Sentinel's penthouse suite, for which his Cornerstone Group is asking $10 million. Photo / Greg Bowker
The last big Auckland apartment block going up in the current round of development activity is nearing completion, as a team of builders climbs towards the 30th level.
Multiplex Construction is putting up the new $125 million Sentinel at Takapuna and has built the tower's central core structure
up to level 26.
But developer Rick Martin of Cornerstone Group is yet to get the $10 million he is asking for the luxury penthouse suite.
He said he had 16 units left to sell and Multiplex was running about a month ahead of schedule.
He was wary of tackling another job of the Sentinel's scale, saying he took a huge risk buying the land without having resource consent for the giant tower.
This round of development activity started around 2001 and reached a peak about two years ago.
Auckland developers who had been putting up about 2000 new units a year have scaled back their workloads, citing steep new council levies, difficult planning laws and less demand as some of the factors that have dampened their appetite.
Jason Jones, Cornerstone's general manager, said the median sales price for Sentinel units was $1 million.
The 117-unit tower will open in December.
Some Sentinel units have sold more than once, Jones said, because buyers had changed their plans.
Units that fetched around $900,000 originally had re-sold for more than $1 million.
