Commercial Bay
Precinct Properties have confirmed that they’ll proceed with the $681 million redevelopment of the Downtown Shopping Centre – which includes the construction of a 39 storey office building – after reaching their target of having 50% of the development pre-leased. Precinct own the current mall, along with the HSBC, Zurich, PWC and AMP towers and are grouping them all into a precinct they’re calling Commercial Bay which is the name originally given to the area before the land was reclaimed.…
61 Comments Fletcher Building on housing
Fletcher Building is the biggest construction company in New Zealand, and a major home builder, so it’s worth keeping an eye on what they say about their residential business and the market. They recently gave a presentation on this.
Fletchers are now established in the “high density” market, having built several apartment buildings at Stonefields in a joint venture with Todd Property.…
Panuku priority development areas confirmed
The council’s Development Committee have confirmed the areas where Panuku Development Auckland will focus on with Manukau and Onehunga the first to be focused on. This should hopefully see some of the great place making that is making Wynyard a fantastic place spread to more locations.…
Development update: November 2015
Spring is usually a busy time in the residential property market. I’ve always thought that the best time to check out a house is winter, so you can get an idea of whether it stays warm or not, but what do I know?…
Gentrification and heritage buildings
K Road is changing. The city’s long-time boho heart is, in a way, sitting between a rock and a hard place. On the one side, there’s a city centre that’s bursting at the seams with university students and suit-clad professionals; on the other, post-gentrification Ponsonby.…
Development update: October 2015
The RCG Development Tracker page has just been updated for October, and there’s plenty of new stuff in there. There are a few areas which are getting major makeovers in the next couple of years – Sale St is one, and Beach Rd/ Anzac Ave is similar with three sizeable apartment projects just about to launch (technically they’re only doing ‘expressions of interest’ at the moment, not actually selling the apartments off the plans).…
Development update: September 2015
I didn’t manage to get a “development update” post out last month, but I’ve now finished doing a pretty major update to the RCG Development Tracker page. Among other things, there’s been a new tranche of Special Housing Areas, a bit more info on things happening around Westgate, and I’ve updated a lot of apartment projects around the city (which ones have begun construction, expected completion dates, etc).…
Do it right the first time
Several months back, I took a look at the way we’re designing street networks and neighbourhoods in greenfield subdivisions. It’s not a pretty picture. The reigning assumption seems to be that places on the edge of the city are car-dependent now and will be car-dependent forever.…
Literature: W.G. Sebald on urban growth
A while back, I read the following passage in W.G. Sebald’s spectacular novel The Rings of Saturn. In the book, Sebald tours the coastline of East Anglia, along with his own memory and England’s history. In a book full of striking, thoughtful passages, I was particularly struck by the following one:
Over the centuries that followed, catastrophic incursions of the sea into the land of this kind happened time and again, and, even during the long years of apparent calm, coastal erosion continued to take its natural course.…
Development update: July 2015
This month I’m going to look at one of the fastest growing types of housing – retirement villages. There are often several different typologies in a retirement village, from detached villas to duplexes, independent apartments, serviced apartments through to rest home, hospital and dementia care – but let’s set that to one side.…
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