It appears that Albert St is shaping up to be one massive sandpit for the next few years after Mansons TCLM have announced details of their plans for the site currently occupied by the Herald.
New Zealand’s tallest new office tower, the $675 million 1 Mills Lane, is planned for the NZME. site in Auckland’s CBD.
Culum Manson, a director of real estate developers and investors Mansons TCLM, today announced the plans for the 190m-tall block between Albert, Wyndham and Swanson Sts and Mills Lane.
The block will include a 30-level tower for 4000 workers, a 125-room hotel, up to 10 luxury brand shops, a new garden penthouse viewing floor, a lower level garden floor and a 45m architectural feature at the top.
The NZME. site is leased to the Herald, which has been in the area since 1863 but in November is moving to Manson’s new office block at 151 Victoria St West.
“We now have demolition consent and we are looking to commence demolition of the old Herald buildings when the site is vacant,” Manson said.
The plan was for the Herald to move off-site at the end of the year to its new building.
“Our team is working closely with Auckland Council and receiving input from the Urban Design Panel.
“We are looking at achieving a final resource consented development design by October this year. This will be Auckland’s next premium office tower with a completion date of December 2018 and an end value of $675 million including the hotel.”
Mansons certainly don’t muck around with their developments and get building quickly. Along with this development we also have the
- NDG centre in the long empty site that is bordered by Elliot St, Victoria St and Albert St. At 209 metres it will be the tallest building outside of the Skytower – last I heard it is due to start next year
- Precinct Properties Downtown Office Tower and replacement of the Downtown Mall due to start next year
- Park Residences which is ~30 storeys tall and under construction now (across the road from Mills Lane development
- The site just up from Park Residences (51-53 Albert St) has resource consent for 46 storey apartment tower.
Through all of this is the City Rail Link of which the enabling works will be starting at the end of this year. I think it’s safe to say that when all of this combined there’s a hell of a lot of change and investment going in to that corridor which also means there’s likely to be a lot of disruption. In many ways having so much disruption at once might not be such a bad thing. It will be painful but far better than spreading it out over a decade or more. This level of private investment also shows that the private sector have a lot of faith in the plans the council have for Auckland and how much of it is only really feasible thanks to the increased people moving power of investments like the CRL?
Of course this isn’t the only area being developed in the central city. A lot of work is going on in and around Wynyard Quarter and a large number of other locations.
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I’ve always liked the ‘skyscraper row’ effect on Albert Street. Glad to see this is being added to.
Great summary.
It’s exciting stuff for what the City Centre Masterplan called ‘one of Auckland’s most disappointing streets’. And all within a few years.
Worth noting the natural advantages that it can maximise too, including the fairly gentle slope and views down to the water and what will eventually be a great new public space at the ferry basin.
Good to see their only including 300 carparks in a building designed for 4500+ people; given about of third of commutes to the CBD are still made by car, they clearly expect the trend in public transport usage to continue. I cant imagine they would be so confident if it weren’t for the revolutionary city rail link.
That they advertise that there will be 1000 additional car parks available within a few minutes walk, I imagine that there must be quite an oversupply in the area currently
I can’t wait for a nimby to say that the towers would destroy Auckland’s skyline
Will the buildings on the corner of Albert and Wolf Streets (opposite Stamford Plaza) ever be redeveloped.
The owner wanted to develop them but they are heritage listed and he failed in his bid to overturn that. Last I heard he was trying to sell them.
What’s Heritage about that corner block? It’s not the Stamford residences opposing a high building restricting their harbour views, is it? Michelle Boag won’t like all that disruption on Albert Street. More positively, While the government moans about not being able to increase suburban supply, the cbd’s just getting on with it and increasing residential supply. Tons of it.
He tried and failed to block heritage listing, with a claim that he had a developer that wanted to build a version of the London Shard there. Supposedly the developer had all the money but was fixated on that exact site and no other empty site around Auckland such as all the ones with planning permission for towers already in place. Thankfully the planning panel saw through his bullshit and granted heritage protection.
The only rational conclusion that can be made from this activity is that the private sector is expecting and relying on the CRL to be built in a timely fashion. It has moved from a visionary and ambitious project to being a necessary and now urgent one.
It is absurd that the country’s biggest city and most important economy is hostage to relatively meaningless and artificial constructs such as the governing Party’s obsession with a paper surplus and its unexamined commitment to a motorway overbuild. Or perhaps even worse, its pigheadedness in refusing to admit it is frankly wrong about the city’s needs and the local authority is being proven to be more right.
+ 10! Just watching a BBC doco on the building of the London crossrail. In the real world, they just get on with it. With our ruling party of farmers, they have no idea.
Jeff exactly. Here is a succinct and precise description of the forces at work in this debate. Thank god for the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-plot-against-trains
Quite.
“What we have, uniquely in America, is a political class, and an entire political party, devoted to the idea that any money spent on public goods is money misplaced, not because the state goods might not be good but because they would distract us from the larger principle that no ultimate good can be found in the state.”
Which when applied here, as all bad American ideas are, simply copied & applied as-is without any critical thinking as to fitness for purpose – explains the attitude & thinking of the current Government, which seems to be that:
“if the market can’t or won’t provide, its for good reasons and so then neither should the state.”
A dogma they follow to the letter, and furthermore they then also apply the logic that if “This Government” won’t provide, then neither should any other government – be it local, or otherwise.
In doing so they miss the the logical next question – if the state won’t provide for the people – when the market doesn’t, then what is the point of the existence of the state?
But Greg the problem with that analysis is that it implies that the private sector provides the road network. And of course this is simply untrue, all roads are the result of central planning and public funding from taxes. It is a tremendous fantasy that driving amenity are somehow ‘natural ‘and Transit, especially rail Transit, is the result of some sort of crazed intervention by contrast. All transport infrastructure is the result of policy and decisions and the direction of public moneys.
Patrick, National truly believes, deep down inside that the market “provides” the entire cost of the road network via fuel taxes and road user charges they pay now.
And Brent Toderian tweeted about this exact thing today: https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/599691590924304385/photo/1
National sees that the state highways sprang fully formed from the earth as a completely “natural” phenomenon, like forests, volcanoes and hydro-electric dams.
While trains are man made infernal creations that suck up tax payers money and spit out masses of people who inconveniently, want more out of life than being stuck in traffic jams half their life or just being seen as “payers” not “users” in the user pays system.
So in their view the “market” is working 100% ok and their focus on roads over everything else is just following the “natural order” decreed from on high and cannot be questioned or disobeyed.
This is in part why Bridges is so upset at the idea of the Auckland Council imposing (or merely wanting to impose) its own taxes on to the road network or fuel used by said “private” road users and instead imposing special “transport” taxes on top of the existing taxes.
They see that the local state government trying to “usurp” private property rights and is also guilty of double taxation. [Ignoring the GST they collect on local body rates for a moment].
Of course its all bollocks, just as it is in America. Yes those roads, ports, airports and railroads in NZ’s case, and the Interstate system in the US’ all got built using tax payer dollars, decisions made and priorities made in earlier time to achieve desirable outcomes.
But the parallels between the US today and National King Canute like behaviour are uncanny and kind of scary when taken to the logical extreme as National is doing – simply to justify the unjustifiable position they take.
You’ve met Bridges and no doubt you’ve seen in his eyes that he has truly drunk the Kool-Aid right?
I can think of no better reason to oppose the CRL than the “private sector” (capitalists) wanting it!
(I do support it though. Great worker transport)
Class wars be damned.
As the former mayor of Bogota said, “An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use transit.”
The more capitalists that use the CRL the better it will be for us all.
Dion, JeffT, Patrick, BBC, MattL, Richard, Sam, Oliver, come on, you all work for Auckland Transport don’t you?
This much support is suspect.
John
John. No.
You must be new around here (BTW answer is no)
It’s not so much as support for AT, John, but more support for getting decent public transport up and running in Auckland.
I think Oliver works for Auckland *Council* not Transport, as his monicker says so.
And if the parties you named did all work for Auckland Transport, do you honestly think we’d be in this current mess of undersupplied PT and oversupplied motorways?
The CRL is the most important infrastructure project in Auckland since the harbour bridge. They should get on and build the north shire rail link after they finish the CRL. There is no need for john key’s road tunnel to the shore. Rail will empty the bridge of half of its traffic as soon as it is opened.
It would also be a boon for the Takapuna town centre, opening that up to a short train trip from the city centre would be pretty amazing.
Agree on CRL. However the north shore has only a fifth of the region’s population and little willingness to add more according to the Unitary Plan engagement so far.
That must be rewarded in kind. You want 3 harbour crossings? Taking the piss.
Most of the local boards north of the harbour bridge have very high growth projections, among the highest in Auckland.
Absolutely amazing – the yachties from their new Takapuna base could get out on the turps in the city!
2 years later, don’t see a difference in the skyline lol