Sylvia Park to be transformed

The wheels are set in motion for redevelopment of an old 'brown' zone, as BOB DEY reports


Kiwi Income Property Trust has filed for a zone change to build its Sylvia Park town centre on the site of the old Camp Bunn, the Second World War sheds in Mt Wellington that have been used lately by small industrial tenants and for car storage.

The project has been about two years in the making so far, and because Kiwi Income has gone for a notified zone change application it is likely to be another two years before the process is completed and work can start.

The site sits between the main trunk railway line and the Mt Wellington Highway, now has the south-eastern arterial route between Onehunga and Pakuranga slicing across it and has the Southern Motorway as its southern boundary. Kiwi Income has also bought land for access through to Carbine Rd.

A rail station is envisaged in the plans, helping to foster employment growth in an area that used to have a big working population when the Southdown and Westfield freezing works and city abattoir were operating.

Plans for the site conform to Auckland City and Auckland Regional Council desires to form hubs with a mixture of residential and commercial uses.

Kiwi Income has gone for a town centre in the same way that AMP Asset Management has for its Botany Downs site between Manukau City Centre and Howick, preferring the wider useage than the pure shopping centre.

"It will turn grey old sheds on a 'brown' site into an integrated, world-class office, residential, entertainment and shopping community in a landscaped town square environment.

"There will be water and trees featuring in abundance. We want the site to be a unique answer to urban sprawl, with careful planning and attention to detail. We want to be part of the greening and rejuvenation of a tired old part of industrial Auckland," says Kiwi Income joint managing director Richard Didsbury.

The Sylvia Park project hooks in neighbouring residential property in Mt Wellington, which CB Richard Ellis director Mike Steur says should rise in value as a result.

It will also have some medium-density housing on that northern border, with changes of use across the site.

Kiwi Income bought the first 11.8ha of Sylvia Park in 1995 for $9.75 million, with a guaranteed 12 per cent return for three years from settlement in 1996. Last year it added 9.1ha immediately to the north at a cost of $20 million.

In retail terms, Sylvia Park would be in close competition with St Lukes Group's 20,000 sq m Pakuranga Plaza, at the end of the new arterial route. While a large retail component is planned for Sylvia Park, Didsbury says its dimensions will depend on tenant demand.

It also depends, first, on rezoning. As Business 4, it is zoned for light and heavy industrial, offices and limited retail buildings. Kiwi Income wants that changed to Business 8, a site-specific zoning allowing a wide range of uses.

Didsbury says Kiwi Income could have redeveloped Sylvia Park for industrial use or as an office park, similar to some of the redevelopment on old freezing works land across the Southern Motorway.

"But all along we've said it's a better site than that."

He says 9000 workers used to pour into the freezing works every day and Kiwi Income's vision for Sylvia Park would bring back up to 6000 full-time jobs as development costing an estimated $500 million is carried out over a decade.

Kiwi Income owns a large chunk of Kiwi Development Trust, which is developing the 37,000 sq m Royal SunAlliance Centre in downtown Auckland, and is also involved in the Maritime Square office park on the Viaduct Basin, where up to 20,000 sq m of lowrise offices are being built.

Didsbury says the Sylvia Park office component will be tenant-driven, but he expects eventually it will be "at least the size of Royal SunAlliance" with office buildings up to six storeys.

Apartments and terraced homes are envisaged on the northern end of the site, moving to the lowrise office area - complete with a lake, to be installed for engineering reasons but intended to be an appealing feature - and then on to a mixture of food and entertainment, civic uses and plazas, with buildings linking the site beneath the new arterial route.

"It's probably more lifestyle-oriented than the traditional centre in New Zealand - more the boulevard concept. It will be like a series of rooms having different themes addressing different family segments," says Mark Luker, general manager of development for Kiwi Property Management.

From Auckland City Council's viewpoint, Sylvia Park is at the centre of the eastern strategic growth management area which follows the eastern rail loop running from St Johns through Glen Innes to Panmure and on to Otahuhu. It is also marked as an urban centre in the draft document "Growing our city through liveable communities," issued in April.

Regional council population growth forecasts for the area over the next 50 years are slow, but if the liveable communities concept takes off the city council expects more than 80,000 people to live in the area by 2050 - 60 per cent more than the forecast 50,000 if things just trundle along.

Upgraded rail links would play an important role in the change and the area's population density would rise from one residential unit to 1200 sq m to a net 1:420 sq m in 2050.

Investigations are being undertaken to create a line haul feeder system based on Panmure and Glen Innes, integrating buses and rail, and a light rail option is being considered to give access to the Mt Wellington quarry site, which is nearing its end as a quarry and is to have various forms of development in it.

While some of this sounds like squeezing people uncomfortably tightly into old industrial zones, Kiwi Income is looking only at medium density.