''It's got lake views, it's CBD, it's a marquee site coming into town,'' he said.
''At the end of the day, it's a bit of land with some buses parked on it, so what goes there needs to say, 'hey, you've now arrived in Queenstown', and that's what we're working around.''
A hotel-room shortage is pushing up Queenstown prices. Hotel room occupancy for the year to March was 90 per cent, at an average rate of $240 - a 15 per cent jump over the same period last year, Colliers International figures, released on Tuesday, show.
It was hoped that would ease with a solid pipeline of hotel, apartment and backpacker rooms planned.
In the past 12 months, developments totalling about 800 rooms have been reported.
Safari Group, which has developed more than a dozen hotel-based properties around New Zealand, is already active in Queenstown.
Last winter, it opened the 59-room Ramada hotel at Frankton's Remarkables Park.
It was the resort's first new hotel in five years and the first to be built near the airport.
Safari is now developing Wyndham Garden next door, comprising 75 hotel rooms and 55 residential apartments.
Its latest purchase presents challenges - including a wellingtonia tree planted in about 1891 and council demands for off-street car parking and a coach drop-off area.
Mr Neil hoped to start work on the hotel in April or May next year.
