Wow the apartment market is really heating up, it seems like every couple of weeks more developments are getting added to the list. Below is a list of developments we have covered in the past, some are under construction already.
City Fringe: Urba – Apartment building replacing a low rise office
New Lynn: Merchant Quarter Condominiums – 10 levels of apartments above a new car parking building and medical clinic development right next to the train station.
Manukau: M Central – The conversion of an existing office building (ex IRD) to apartments and retail
City: Sugartree – A series of apartment buildings being developed around Cook and Nelson St.
City: 132 Vincent St – Another office conversion
Grey Lynn: The Isaac – A lower rise development (four stories) that is already well under construction.
Orakei: Orakei Village – A series of town houses and retail on Orakei point above the rail station.
Newmarket: 88 Broadway – An apartment development above the Newmarket railway junction.
City: Club Life Victoria – An apartment development on the western edge of the CBD aimed solely at baby boomers.
City Fringe: The Saint – A great looking low rise development in Newton.
In addition, readers have pointed out a few others I hadn’t covered.
City: Queens Residences – A couple of towers on Airdale St. This is by the same developer as Urba.
City: Soto – 18 Storey apartment building in Liverpool St. What I find really interesting about this one is the lack of balconies, something I thought wasn’t allowed under even the current rules (there are some on the penthouse apartments).
Ponsonby: Shoji – A low level apartment complex being built in Vinegar Lane just off Ponsonby Rd (this is on the former Soho site). This is by the same developers as Club Life Victoria and The Saint.
Another new development has recently popped up and is apparently selling quite well. It is known as Hopetown Residences and is from the same company as 132 Vincent St. Like Vincent St it is a conversion of an old office building (used to be the Baycorp building). The developers are adding on fairly extensive balconies to the building with some over 60m² so bigger than many apartments elsewhere in the city. Being up on a ridgeline there is also going to be some amazing views, especially from the upper floors. Apparently carparking is being sold separately at $50-$60k each.
Another new development now on the market is known as The Square however there isn’t a huge amount of information about it suggesting it is probably only early days. It is apparently on the Gt North Rd ridge line, a place ripe for intensification.
Further out there are also apartments being proposed at Hobsonville Point. This one known as Brickworks contains retail on the ground floor with 60 apartments above.
In Browns Bay is another low rise mixed use development called the Norfolk Apartments.
I’m not sure how many dwellings all of these buildings combined are adding to the city but it would have to be over 1,000 and it’s great to see developers coming to life once again after years of hibernation. Are we going to see a skyline dotted with cranes?
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Looks as the the Grey Lynn one is on Great North Road opposite Northland St. http://goo.gl/maps/e2pQv
The White Refrigeration building at 406 Great North Road can clearly be seen at the left of the renders.
Doesn’t quite seem to be repalcing caryards, more car repair workshops and storage.
Well spotted Luke, I think they’re 406-428 ish South side of GNR from Commercial Rd to the old Council Flats.
Cinemas? In the hood? Bring it on!
I linked to the location in the post
Got three more (after the M Central) apartment towers (all 14-18 storeys) coming through planning and pre-sales pipeline in the Manukau City Centre – Metropolitan Area. So three more cranes coming to an already busy skyline down here. If M Central sold fast I expect these towers to sell just as fast.
Just got to get this silly height restriction of 18 storeys lifted to unlimited as it currently is pre Unitary Plan. If someone wants to build a 36 storey monster and providing an aircraft wont go into the side of it then I say let them build that 36 storey tower.
How many carparks are these apartments in Manukau required to have at present?
Need to check the current two 18 storey towers next to the AMI Tower in Manukau. I think its 1:1 if not then it might be 1 car park to 1.5 apartments
What are the other Manukau apartments? Haven’t seen any being marketed except M Central.
Hmmm some rather “impressive numbers there for M Central http://www.donha.co.nz/listing/DHA652
As for you other question: Got three more (after the M Central) apartment towers (all 14-18 storeys) coming through planning and pre-sales pipeline in the Manukau City Centre – Metropolitan Area.
Planning and pre-sales pipeline. So I would gather that the developer is going through Council to see consents to have the towers built over a time frame while also lining up the real estate firm to sell the new set of apartments. So might go rattling around the Planning Department at Council to see what is coming through in the area. While I am at I might ping Westfield and see if they have any plans for the mall.
M Central is now being advertised as only 6 remaining for sale,.
I see or rather saw that last night. I wonder though what the latent or pent up demand is for apartments (office and retail) is in the area.
Yes 3 cranes on the Manukau Skyline pales to the CBD – but hey I’ll take three cranes of dead vacant lots
Oh, when you said pre-sales I thought you meant currently being sold, in advance of construction 🙂 Good to see that some more stuff is coming along.
Apologies for confusion there John.
Keep an eye on Don Ha real estate as I believe (according to the Manukau Central Business Association) will be the one handling at least one of the three new towers if not all three.
In any case might send an email this week to the Council Planners and see what is happening
Great to see. Hopefully they will be designed to appeal to first home buyers as apartments are a great lifestyle for the that post uni – pre kids stage of life.
Pre-kids stage of life for the rest of my life, thank you very much!
Unfortunately with these sold of the plans first home buyers don’t like to commit that far in advance, probably all investors in short term. However if that gets them built then thats great.
Most of these look great, but I do have to say with that SoHo one that the lack of balconies is a huge put off. Having lived in an apartment with no balconies, it can really feel like you’re “caged in”. Luckily for me, I lived in a huge older style apartment and was only on the first floor, so it wasn’t a huge deal but I couldn’t imagine being in one of these new tiny apartments on the 10th floor without a balcony.
That is a complication. Tempted to agree with rules to force balconies for new apartments. However conversions certainly need to be exempt, as this can prevent conversions, and in the case of historic buildings distract from historic values.
Yes, I am generally referring to new buildings. Office conversions and older buildings tend to be much more spacious anyway.
But what if your mate didn’t want a balcony? Would it be fair to force him/her to pay for one?
Agree with this point. If you don’t support minimum parking regs than its a bit hypocritical to support minimum balcony regs.
What is hypocritical about that? They are different regulations with different outcomes. Minimum balcony regulations are not as distorting as minimum parking regulations.
I’m not saying I necessarily support minimum balcony regulations (I haven’t made up my mind on that) – just that it is perfectly valid to support one type of regulation and to be against another.
Hypocritical is the wrong word. It would be inconsistent.
I don’t see how it is any different, for someone who doesn’t want a balcony it is just a useless piece of space that they have to pay for, exactly like a car park. Don’t be fooled by it being being adjacent to the living area. many still won’t use it. Have a look at the apartments in town 100 balconies on a single building and never a single one being used except for storage.
Was speaking to a neighbour today, they have decided to move out of the burbs and into an apartment in Parnell. They are over having to maintain a house and section, want to be somewhere a bit more lively and want easier commutes. What’s interesting about the last point is that neither work in the CBD but in the suburbs and so the central city represents somewhere of roughly equal distance for both of them.
I used to work on the North Shore and lived in Parnell/CBD so was a reverse commuter. It’s more common than what you might think. The bus was almost always near full even though we were going in the opposite direction to everyone else.
Yes, a rise in inner city living does support the case for the CRL: Movements go in all directions, it is a mistake to think of it as only a project for supplying drones to the central workplace. It will make any combination of living/working/playing throughout Auckland more accessible, especially without having to always rely on a private vehicle.
Good work keeping an eye on these developments, Matt. Auckland does look like its in for another round of city building.
Question is: Do we have the regulatory framework right to make these buildings better than the last lot?
Why do you want any regulatory framework? I thought you were all for trusting the developers to respond to what the market wants.
It is naive to think there won’t be some rules so it’s not a question of rules versus no rules, but whether we can get rid of the worse ones. In particular; minimum parking regs, building setbacks, and crazy low height limits. Then there’s questionable minimum apartment sizes and mandatory balconies (often nice but not always; especially on the south side, when facing loud motorways, or as opposed to more actual interior space).
But I’m all for insulation, weather tightness, and some other fire and strength controls.
You just change your own rules to suit your agenda. If developers can be trusted on parking minimums then they can be trusted on everything.
Of course you and I both know developers can’t be trusted on anything and that’s why we do have things like parking mins, fire requirements, and height rules.
Childish generalisation. Neither developers nor councillors can be trusted to do everything that we all like all of the time; why single out developers? I am not against rules, just against bad rules. And minimum parking regs and mandatory setbacks and low height limits are bad rules.
I have never claimed to be some kind of libertarian; but sure can spot a stupid distorting rule when I see one.
I believe we do need some rules. But I won’t agree that developers are by definition evil. AKL has some of the stupidest regs that force ugliness and inefficiency in the built environment and make the work of those who are trying to make a living building our world worse than it otherwise than it could be.
There is a big difference between saying what can be built, and how it can be built.
Just because exclusionary zoning laws are to be relaxed to loosen up WHAT can be built, doesnt mean that the rules in (for example) the Building Act and its regulations should be loosened in relation to HOW those developments should be built. In fact, those rules should be strengthened to a statutory design manual. People are concentrating too much on the what when we should be concentrating on the how.
So we are saying to developers that they can build a wide variety of different building types but they must be built to a high standard. Those two sets of rules are not dealing with the same thing.
If developers cant make money from quality developments with a wide range building types to choose from (apartments, terraced housing, semi-detached housing, large lot, small lot etc) then they dont deserve to be in business.
@Patrick: If you were in charge, what planning rules do you think should remain? BTW I do agree that most planning rules are unnecessary and it’d be best if they were repealed.
Gary; if I walk into a house or apartment I can immediately tell how large it is, whether it has a balcony, and can see the parking it may have, I can not see the insulation, or cladding material that has been rendered, or the stud material. Building materials cannot be controlled by the free market because the market cannot be seen, balconies and parking can.
Anyone know if any of these developments think about using solar panels for electricity or hot water?
By the way, that Brickworks example above looks like a good scale and type for Auckland. More of those in our suburban centres and they’ll get a real buzz from the increased vitality, commercial viability, and general intensity. Especially as the Transit options and service improves radically. Looks like a good investment. Hopefully any car parking is decoupled from the living or even better; not mandatory.
By contrast the Browns Bay one above looks very parking heavy and in a bad way; up on piloties.
Although being at Hobsonville Point, supposedly a walkable community, I don’t see the need for the rendered traffic lights.
There are already traffic lights there, like outside the school
There are some not great parts to the brickworks one, It is a square with a central courtyard devoted to ….. parking
Nasty!
Of course there is. It’s not like you’d want things like – you know – grass, BBQ areas – actual living space.
Brickworks looks great from the outside but the central court yard is terrible. All carparking should be undergrond, not filling the central court yard and under apartments held up by poles!
Do a small park so the outlook is nice – whats the complex in the viaduct that surrounds a small park – thats how they should be developed.
Yes, but to do that requires either no parking or, more likely, underground parking. I guess the land value in Hobsonville doesn’t make that expense compelling? This style of at grade courtyard parking is very low value council estate style and essentially awful.
All over the world this typology is fiercely resisted after decades of understanding the outcomes. Only worse are open ground level garaging which looks like what the Browns Bay one has lurking behind the planting. Oh dear; do we have to learn everything all over again?
Of course it all comes back to auto dependency and minimum parking regs…. What to do? With a leafy key-holder park within those blocks the value of the Hobonville apartments would be higher, but would it cover the cost of underground parking? Are they forced to provide parking for the retail? If the Council will allow it how about building fewer underground carparks, unbundle the parking and sell it at a rate that covers the increased cost of building it and watch as people with fewer cars are attracted….?
Has the developer and Council even run the numbers?
I really like the look of Norfolk apartments, my Mum was quite keen on them, looks like there are quite a few without carparks from what I’ve seen.
Relationship between heritage protections and affordability in San Francisco: deeply relevant to Ak’s UP debate: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/
Wow, the first part of that article could be a future article about Auckland:
“But the city did not allow its housing supply to keep up with demand. [Auckland] was down-zoned (that is, the density of housing or permitted expansion of construction was reduced) to protect the “character” that people loved. It created the most byzantine planning process of any major city in the country. Many outspoken citizens did—and continue to do—everything possible to fight new high-density development or, as they saw it, protecting the city from undesirable change.
Unfortunately, it worked: the city was largely “protected” from change. But in so doing, we put out fire with gasoline.”
This is all rather inspirational. There’s also some work going on by the Ponsonby ‘pool’, by the looks of things.
Beyond a certain height, balconies become impractical (Auckland has a fair breeze most of the time, especially at height), ugly (opinions may differ, but hundreds of protrusions don’t spell appealing design to me), and dangerous (dropping something, or falling/jumping – suicide is an unfortunate fact of life). At any height, their provision adds cost and complication to design and building.
Up to 4 stories, make them compulsory, 5-7 – at least half. Above 7, they should be optional.
Agree that the balconies should be options (especially the bit ones currently mandated). They often look pretty ugly and in most cases don’t seem to get a lot of use (except for storage and hanging out washing). If the market wants them then they will command enough premium for developers to include them.
Don’t underestimate the sense of space and ‘being outdoors’ that those balconies create, even the ones just big enough for washing and standing and in to gaze out. I live in a 43 sq m apartment, and without that tiny balcony and the floor to ceiling sliding glass doors that open onto it from my living room, I would feel utterly trapped. And I’ve lived in a 4+ metre stud warehouse conversion on Emily Place, but without a balcony, trapped!
Agree – even if you never go out there, the sense of space from a floor to ceiling ranch slider compared to a wall with a window in it is immense.
A floor to ceiling window (with no deck) is not quite the same as the sense of high changes the perspective. Stand right next to a floor to ceiling window 15+ stories up and see if it is as comforting as having a deck just there.
Thanks, sounds like they work even if you don’t use them directly 🙂
For comparison I looked at an apartment in my building that had pushed the wall out and incorporated the balcony into the living room. Even though it made for a bigger apt, I still felt trapped. And the balcony can be full of plants which makes it feel like the outdoors. I noticed a balcony in a really high apartment building corner of near Victoria St and it was full of plants and so beautiful. If each balcony had that, it would create a green wall, beautiful!
So if at a basic level we only need balconies to enclose the living room frontage, do they really need to be 10m2?
And as a CBD apt dweller I agree as well. When I moved from my last place I had two options – a two bedroom heritage place that had been done up and was just at the back of Britomart and with two people would’ve been cheaper in rent per person but had no balcony or a 1 bedroom place near Victoria Park that was more expensive but had a balcony (though smallish). The balcony tipped it the 1 bedroom’s way even though I don’t go out onto the balcony everyday. Just having the option of being able to go outside and sit quietly at my small table and with a coffee and brunch, or a beer/wine/cider after work, particularly in Summer is something I felt I couldn’t do without! 🙂
These arguments could just as easily be about 30 vs 20 m^2 apartments though. Even if all but 10 people would prefer a balcony, they shouldn’t be forced to have them, you won’t be forced to not.
Can we email this post around the “flat-is-good” Auckland plan opponents and tell them that this is what they’re opposing?
Well they will probably have a heart attack at the CBD ones but the Brickworks one is a good example of the type of development they are trying to prevent.
Matt, you can add these to the list – all at the marketing stage, not under construction:
164 Hobson Street (haven’t seen a website yet, but there are posters up – it’s being called Fiore 2)
Tenor Apartments, Albany
Apollo Square, Mairangi Bay
And The Grove at Albany
..and these ones are actually built – the only one not sold off plans first?
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=649381578