A major development that would transform the Wanganui CBD is a "golden and unique" opportunity for a big underground car park, says commercial property investor CJ Efstratiou.
Mr Efstratiou, who owns several Wanganui properties, said he was offering to sell, lease or lease with option to buy an underground parking area in St Hill St opposite Cooks Gardens, potentially suitable for 200-plus cars. But the Wanganui District Council says there's no need for the car park.
Mr Efstratiou bought the pay and display car parking site from the council in 2003. He plans to develop it, together with surrounding sites he owns, "to provide a continuous building fa?ade almost around the whole of Maria Pl and St Hill St".
"It will be primarily retail-based, and it will be wonderful. It will transform the CBD," Mr Efstratiou told the Chronicle.
Plans for the development would likely be presented to the council early in the new year, and if it proceeded without the underground car park the opportunity would be lost.
People needed to know that council now had the chance to look to the future and secure parking while it was still available.
But council community development chairman Ray Stevens said there was no need for it: "If we had needed it, we would have done something."
The council was short of cash but would still look at any proposal of huge benefit to the community, he said.
Mr Efstratiou, from Oxford, England, is married to the daughter of a Wanganui family. He said he spent three to four months a year in New Zealand, mainly Wanganui. Over 20 years he had acquired a lot of commercial property in Victoria Ave, St Hill St and Maria Pl. On "the sunny side" of Victoria Ave, for example, he owned all but three of the buildings between Sports Edge and Whitcoulls, inclusive. After he bought the St Hill St car park, council gave him $10,000 for a feasibility study into an underground car park, because an officer thought it a good idea. It was found to be feasible, and Mr Efstratiou said the parks would be cost effective. He said having a large parking area off Victoria Ave would give future generations the opportunity to set aside parts of the Avenue for pedestrians or running a tram. "There are many provincial cities in New Zealand that would envy Wanganui that opportunity. I want the city to have the chance to consider the option before the property is developed in another way."
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