Big plans for the site. Photo / NZ Horizon Hospitality Group.
Big plans for the site. Photo / NZ Horizon Hospitality Group.
Plans for a new $350 million-plus Radisson hotel and apartments at the Remarkables Park in the Queenstown area are in doubt with a mortgagee sale via international tender called on the land.
The 1ha greenfields site at 67-71 Red Oaks Dr is being advertised by Colliers International which says theRemarkables Park Town Centre is Queenstown's most established open-air retail centre.
Consent has been granted for a 426-room hotel and 180 apartments, advertising said. Those plans are for two hotels of four and five-star quality as well as separate apartments but all joined together.
Tony Tosswill's NZ Horizon Hospitality Group said he planned a scheme which when finished would have been worth around $350m.
"I brought a new operator to this country," he said of the Radisson hotel planned for the site.
He bought the land about three years ago and borrowed the money from Pearlfisher.
"I still control the land. It's a dispute with the lender. I can't talk to you about it until after February 5. I still control the land until that date," Tosswill said.
"People talk about tourism, employment and construction but when you ask them to put up something, there's nothing. I find it very sad when you're trying to help this country."
NZ Horizon shows plans for the scheme on its website, on the land next to Queenstown Airport.
Tosswill, based in Tekapo, is an active developer in the Dunedin, Queenstown and Tekapo areas.
The scheme was for a new seven-storey apartment tower looking towards the Remarkables as well as the two hotels.
Site not far from Kawerau River. Photo / Colliers International
"Shopping is a breeze with the nearby Frankton shopping complex, New World supermarket. Future developments have been tabled for the construction of a new Queenstown convention centre and a Remarkables gondola to the ski field, all which would be just down the road," the business said.
It called the apartment component Horizons.
"Horizons is part of a greater three-tower development which includes a 257-room 4-star hotel and 152-room 5-star hotel. The Horizons apartments include 149 apartment units: 66 one-bedroom apartments, 69 two-bedroom units, six three-bedroom units, eight three plus study/fourth bedroom units and approximately 151 car parks," the business said.
Colliers said the surrounding Remarkables Park area provided one of the largest mixed-use development programmes in the region. It also cited five new hotel and apartment developments either completed or under construction.
The site at 67-71 Red Oaks Dr, Frankton. Photo / Colliers International
Around 275 apartments and 250 hotel rooms were completed in the past three years near the site, Colliers said,
The site near the Kawarau River is 10,909sq m and in three titles. Colliers will accept tender offers for all three or any one of the titles, agents said.
Alastair Porter of Remarkables Park said today he was sorry to hear of the mortgagee sale but he had no doubts a large project would rise there still.
"I sympathise with them. Obviously, they're a casualty of Covid and borders being closed to tourism which makes it very hard. There's still talk of the bubble with Australia after March and Australian tourism alone would keep Queenstown going."
Steve Brent, a Queenstown lawyer, said the mortgagee sale was not a sign of the times.
"Once the borders open, there's going to be a stampede. You build when there's nobody coming. That's when there's time."
Two new hotels were being developed at Remarkables Park and one at Five Mile, he said.
"They're all still ploughing ahead and there are a number of other new developments still going ahead as well. I see the mortgagee sale one as a bit of an outlier to be perfectly honest."
