Hotel Indigo Auckland general manager Matt Simister in a room in the new $250m 41-level tower at 51 Albert St developed by Melbourne-headquartered Ninety-Four Feet. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Hotel Indigo Auckland general manager Matt Simister in a room in the new $250m 41-level tower at 51 Albert St developed by Melbourne-headquartered Ninety-Four Feet. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Headboards are fitted with tubular strip-style upholstery like a classic Holden, artwork above the hotel bed is an enlarged rear-view mirror and hallway wallpaper shows rivets on steel, while wardrobes and TV stands are industrial black tubular metal.
It’s all about cars.
The interior design theme of IHG’s new href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/construction-of-250m-41-level-albert-st-tower-starts-new-indigo-hotel-30-apartments/O23JANGVDBOQZSZDBAE2O6WOA4/" target="_blank">Hotel Indigo Auckland is classic motoring, with the 41-level building at 51 Albert due to open later this year as New Zealand’s first hotel branded with that name.
Dean Rzechta, managing director of building owner and developer Ninety-Four Feet of Australia, took the Herald on a tour of the new tower with Icon NZ director Dan Bosher and hotel general manager Matt Simister.
Dean Rzechta of Ninety-Four Feet and Hotel Indigo Auckland general manager Matt Simister on level 41 of the new tower. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Australian headquartered construction specialist Icon has built the hotel and apartment tower above the Macdonald Halligan Motors building, the design paying homage to the original business, whose building was designed by architect F Earnest Smith in 1912 but not built until 1918.
Simister, previously with Holiday Inn Queenstown Remarkables Park, said the 225-room hotel goes from the ground floor to level 27. Room rates will be around $300-700/night. A 100-seat cocktail bar, 80-seat French-style bistro and 20-seat cafe which is to become a wine bar at night are planned on lower levels.
Dan Bosher heads Icon in New Zealand. That business built the new 41-level tower which is the Hotel Indigo Auckland, with apartments above. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The hotel’s main entrance is to be off St Patrick’s Square, while the apartments’ entrance would be off Albert St, he said.
Australian architect Scott Carver designed the building and did the interior design: “A scaffolding-inspired open wardrobe and peg-board display make reference to the building’s auto-mechanic history and provide space to tell the neighbourhood story in imagery such as the tūī feathers on the throw cushions and objects such as jet plane lollies.”
The new $250 million 41-level tower Hotel Indigo Auckland (centre) against the Auckland CBD's skyline. Photo / Jason Oxenham
A plant room is on level 28, then it’s apartments from levels 29-41. The building is some months from being completed, its many floors now busy construction workplaces.
The Herald visited a hotel room on level five with everything except the bed. Carpets are down in hallways and rooms; bathrooms and guest rooms are fitted.
But the hospitality areas are some way off completion, with entrances now being used to haul construction materials into the block then up the tower.
Hotel Indigo Auckland general manager Matt Simister in one of the new rooms on level five. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Rzechta said Ninety-Four Feet owned the building but acknowledged the market was “challenging”.
He is engaging agent Graham Wall to sell the level-41 penthouse for $18-20m, although the price would ultimately be decided by the market, he said. The penthouse was to be two levels and go for around $26m, but Rzechta said there was less of a market for an offering like that these days.
“We have set the pre-sale price record for a penthouse apartment in New Zealand,” he said, citing the $18.2m planned sale of the as-yet unbuilt project Lakeview Taumata.
“That’s a record and just under $42,000/sq m, the most expensive apartment sold off the plans in New Zealand.”
Hotel Indigo Auckland beside the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Patrick and Saint Joseph in the CBD. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Icon’s Dan Bosher, who took over from Dan Ashby last July, said the tower was around the fifth-tallest in Auckland at 142m.
The three-level building was a private garage with frontages to Albert St and what once was Chapel Lane, now St Patrick’s Square. It has two street frontages with a plain open warehouse space between and its Albert St frontage is of a classical style in the manner of commercial buildings of that period, with arched windows and ornamentation on the upper levels.
Under the Auckland Unitary Plan, the motoring building was scheduled as a Category B place, but interiors are excluded from that, so it is just the exterior that has any protection. Ninety-Four Feet kept that and refurbished it.
Architects Scott Carver paid homage to those roots in the new hotel.
A quote frosted on to that mirror above the hotel bed reads: “‘You will just keep crashing if you never take your eyes off the rear-view mirror’ - Leo Christopher.”
Simister said the hotel was due to open before Christmas, in either November or December.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
