Lodge's $15m sale sets a record

By ANNE GIBSON

Auckland developers Dan and Kelly McEwan are paying $15 million for one of the last big Queenstown building sites - a record, says a local real estate agent.

Duncan Brown of Harcourts Queenstown said the sale was the largest at his office in its seven years of operation.

The father and son developers of McEwan Group bought Mountain View Lodge from gondola and tourism operator Skyline Enterprises.

The McEwans plan to demolish the lodge and redevelop the site into a $100 million luxury townhouse and apartment project with 150 units.

The 59-room lodge is on a 2.4ha site at 96-130 Frankton Rd - the main road into Queenstown - with commanding views of Lake Wakatipu and surrounding mountains.

Dan McEwan said the site was close to Queenstown's heart and elevated, which made it one of the best in the area.

Brown said he had been working on the deal for 18 months and was pleased with the outcome.

Kelly McEwan said the site was only about four blocks from the centre of town and the price paid was competitive at around $620 a square metre of land.

Queenstown properties were selling for between $750 and $1000 a square metre on average, he said.

"You'd always like it to be cheaper, but it was a good deal."

The McEwans moved to Auckland from Southland in the 1970s.

Kelly McEwan said the group was involved in developing properties and running its Investors' Forum seminar series in Australia and New Zealand, promoting residential property as a form of investment.

He said the McEwans were developing a large Takapuna site on the corner of Anzac St and Fred Thomas Drive, where they had resource consent for a 134-unit residential project.

That job had gone out to tender, he said, and work was expected to start soon.