KEY POINTS:
Astley Leathers' 2ha property that has operated as a tannery for 119 years at 44 Portage Rd, New Lynn, is for sale, with offers closing on November 15.
The site was established as a purpose-built tannery in 1888 and is New Lynn's, and possibly Auckland's, oldest industrial site
in continuous use.
Sitting on two freehold titles, the buildings cover 13,915 sq m of the site and include the original tannery, production and old storage areas covering 4750 sq m.
Over the decades other buildings were added, including a 1960 sq m warehouse and two-storey office built about 1992, warehouse production, drying and finishing areas covering 4340 sq m, a 925 sq m mezzanine floor, a 1460 sq m dispatch building, with warehouse production and ground and first floor offices.
Colliers International is marketing the property and director Charles Cooper, industrial manager Nigel Ingham and broker Dwayne Warby say it is an ideal redevelopment site.
E Astley & Sons moved on to the site when New Lynn was a village surrounded by rural land.
At the time it was ideal as the tannery needed water from the nearby Whau Stream and had to be well out of town, says Astley Leathers former manager Nigel Dobson.
A short time later, the Crown Lynn company set up a pottery and brickworks on a nearby property and the two companies were the biggest businesses in New Lynn for decades.
The company stayed in the Astley family until 1984 when the business merged with Christchurch wool and leather merchants Mair Group to become the listed Mair Astley. A couple of years later Mair Astley was bought by construction company Mainzeal and renamed Richina Pacific.
In the mid-1990s Richina Pacific formed a joint venture with Shanghai Leather Company in China and the company's chromium-based tanning technologies and equipment were transferred to China.
The remaining part of Astley Leather was sold to Dobson and his business partners in 1998, with the company exporting 90 per cent of its vegetable-tanned products.
Vegetable tanning is now Astley Leathers' specialty. This was the traditional type of tanning until chromium was introduced in the 1950s to impart different qualities to leather.
Reverting to vegetable tanning helped Astley Leathers survive the past 15 years. The slump in New Zealand's tanning industry began when the footwear trade moved overseas to become more competitive. This industry is the world's biggest buyer of tanned leather, gobbling up between 60 and 70 per cent.
Astley Leathers established niche markets in vegetable tanned hides for equestrian products, belt leather, leather for gun holsters and other speciality items, says Dobson.
"We did not attempt to take the world head on in very competitive areas of the trade, such as footwear."
Two years ago Dobson and partners sold the tannery to Lowe Corporation, an animal byproduct processor, but retained ownership of the land and buildings. Astley Leathers is now part of a bigger group that has a good supply of hides. It was a natural fit with Lowe Corporation's other businesses that include wet-blue tanned cattle hides; wet-salted, pickled and wet-blue sheep, lamb, goat and deer skins, says Dobson.
Dobson and his partners have now decided to quit the tannery property as well and move on to other projects. He believes the property is ripe for redevelopment.
A considerable number of consents are needed to operate a tannery and the Auckland Regional Council is starting to look more closely at these types of businesses operating close to suburban areas. Most are succumbing to the pressures of progress.
Astley Leathers 2005 and several other tenants occupy the property, paying more than $293,000 a year in rent, with good potential for more income from vacant space.
Ingham says the property will appeal to developers but it is also suitable for owner-occupiers who need a big site immediately for expansion.
"Waitakere City has strong industrial growth," Ingham says. "The manufacturing sector accounts for 22 per cent of paid jobs and 31 per cent of GDP in Waitakere and is the area's largest earner and employer. Finding, affordable reasonably central industrial properties for manufacturing is becoming more difficult."
The property has 300m of frontage along Portage Rd and 90m along McWhirter Place, creating a corner site. More than 10,000 cars a day on average pass the tannery site, offering good visibility for signage. The property has a mixture of buildings, some in good condition and others requiring significant upgrade.
As part of a beautification programme, Waitakere and Auckland City Councils have started work on a Waitemata Harbour to Manukau Harbour walkway along the Whau Stream. Part of the walkway will run along the stream on the eastern boundary of the property.
Under the Waitakere City Council's District Plan the Portage Rd property is zoned Working Environment.
The zone does not specify any benchmarks apart from a buildings projection in relation to the recession plan. Other controls such as building height and plot ratios are assessed on a case-by-case basis. Residential development is a discretionary activity.
This could be one of the last chances to undertake an urban redevelopment of this scale in a location close to the CBD.
