NRC buys $465K Dargaville building to cope with staff increase

PROPERTY EXPANSION: Penny Smart outside the $465,000 Dargaville site proposed for a Northland Regional Council service centre.

The Northland Regional Council spent nearly half a million dollars to buy a Dargaville building to house a staff increase from two to 10 over the next five years.

The council is considering building a new customer service centre in the former medical centre it bought in Hokianga Rd late last year for $465,000.

Reconstruction into a service centre with office space to be tenanted out would likely see the current building knocked down.

NRC Dargaville-based staff moved from their Victoria St office into the Kaipara District Council (KDC) building in mid-2016.

However, that building lacks the space to cope with the NRC's planned staff and services expansion, said Penny Smart, who chairs the NRC's property sub-committee.

"Council sees it as a strategic and longer-term investment in both Dargaville and the wider Kaipara area due to its proximity to both Whangarei and Auckland," she said of the building bought through the Property Reinvestment Fund.

A design recommendation and costs are expected to go before the council later this year, with the building's current tenants, including Dargaville radio station Big River FM, staying in the meantime.

Ms Smart said the redevelopment would probably be to a two-storey building, the second floor commercially tenanted office space suitable for accountants or lawyers.
Should the plan go ahead, the building could be in use in 2019.