Infratil's site splans an entire city block. Photo/Greg Bowker
Infratil's site splans an entire city block. Photo/Greg Bowker
Plans for a six-building commercial, retail and tourism scheme have been announced by Infratil Infrastructure Property, which has begun development of its leasehold Auckland waterfront Wynyard Quarter site.
Andrew Lamb, development general manager, said: "We have consent for six buildings of about 80,000sq m on the 1.7ha site."
Infratil's NZBus site is an entire leasehold block between Halsey, Pakenham, Gaunt and Daldy St, one block off Fanshawe St, and Lamb said the first building would have a 154-room Travelodge with ground-floor retail.
Part of the Infratil site on Halsey St, in the Wynyard Quarter where site works have begun. Photo/Greg Bowker
"It will have food and beverage and service areas as well as new NZ Bus offices, which will occupy part of the ground floor. We're keeping them there in the interim."
Site works have started to create the first seven-level $65 million building which will have 385 car parks for tenants and the public. Lamb said that would be finished by May 2020.
The land is owned by Viaduct Harbour Holdings and Infratil's leasehold payments are reviewed every 21 years on a perpetual Glasgow lease structure. New leasehold payments were established in 2014.
Lamb said the work to build all six blocks would take until at least 2030, and some of the buildings would be more than 9000sq m of gross floor area.
The ground floor of the first building will be about 2200sq m with NZ Bus occupying around 800sq m, Lamb said. Travelodge's reception and restaurant would also be on the ground floor.
"Timing for completion of the hotel and carpark in May to June 2020 captures the America's Cup," Lamb said, referring to yacht racing starting in 2021.
Preparatory earthworks are underway on a large part Infratil's NZ Bus site where city buses are parked on Halsey St off Fanshawe St opposite Lighter Quay, near the new $300mn Park Hyatt Auckland hotel and multi-million-dollar apartments.
Dean Humphries, Colliers International's New Zealand and South Pacific national hotel director, said this morning: "We were appointed by Infratil to undertake a global hotel operator search to find a suitable operator for this development. We successfully secured a well-known operator."
Diggers are working at the development, named Wynyard100, on the Halsey St/Pakenham St corner, restricting parking on the NZ Bus site.
White fencing has been erected, diggers are working and a line of portacom construction sheds have been erected on Infratil or bus side of the land.
In 2010, Infratil planned a $200m convention centre on that completely level site but SkyCity won that bid and Fletcher Construction is due to finish the $700m-plus NZICC development towards the end of next year.
A sign on the Pakenham St fence says the project is Wynyard100. Infratil Infrastructure Property is the principal, NZStrong is the contractor, the hotel operator is Asia's TFE Hotels and RDT Pacific are the project managers, the sign says.
Peddle Thorp's images of how Wynyard100 will look on completion.
Peddle Thorp shows two building images via its illustrations of plans for Wynyard100.
Architects Peddle Thorp are carrying this image of Wynyard100.
The NZ bus site is at 100 Halsey St. The business says its Auckland city depot is at 1 Gaunt St. The business says it operates a fleet of more than 630 buses nationally from 11 depots and employs about 1300 people.
Eight years ago, Infratil revealed it had been working for some time to identify potential alternatives to its central city depot in Halsey St. One site it was looking to lease was in Parnell, where 60 Link buses could be parked on a 2ha site on railway land below Cheshire St.
Richard Goldie of Peddle Thorp said today the hotel would have 3.5 stars and be the first building his firm had designed that would have extensive retail ground-floor areas including a lobby and cafe.
QV lists 100 Halsey St as being a 1.8ha site valued at $48m: $44m for the land and $4m for buildings there.
The Wynyard Quarter could have more than 300 new hotel rooms soon.
As well as the new Travelodge, the 195-room Park Hyatt is being built by Hawkins Construction and China State Construction for Fu Wah.
Almost directly opposite Wynyard 100 is the existing and well-established Sofitel Auckland Viaduct Harbour Hotel at 21 Viaduct Harbour Ave.
