Deposits taken on $140m of Alexandra Park apartments

An artist's impressions of the new units at Alexandra Park. Photo/supplied

Initial deposits have been paid on apartments worth $140 million at Auckland's Alexandra Park project, now under construction.

Dominique Dowding, park chief executive, said one tower crane was in place on the project where 246 apartments are planned.

Those are priced from $585,000 to $2 million. Deposits had been taken on three-quarters of the apartments in stage one and about 30 per cent in stage two which includes 44 luxury apartments, she said.

In a statement, she expressed enthusiasm about the scheme: "Alexandra Park expects to break $155m sales in the coming weeks, helped by the fact that people can now literally see a whole new village being constructed before their very eyes," the statement said.

The apartments are being built in the Auckland Trotting Club's former Green Lane West car park and about 750 people are expected to live in the new residences.

Albert-Eden Local Board chairman Peter Haynes said when the project was announced that the board backed intensification but "two major arterial roads meet almost at the front door", he said, referring to Manukau Rd and Green Lane West Rd.

"What would be the impact on traffic flows that are already problematic? Is the developer going to contribute to improvements at the intersection, for example?" he asked in 2014.

"Parking is also an issue, especially since the proposed development is on the site of a carpark that gets good use when large events are happening at the race track or the ASB Showgrounds," Haynes said at the time.

Canam Construction won the contract to build the places and its managing director Loukas Petrou said about 30,000 cubic metres of earth and about 2500 cubic metres of basalt rock had been removed from the site.

"With the removal of the rock, we've been crushing it on site so it can be used as backfill behind retaining walls and under the basement slabs," he said.