Hotel on Farmers site just one option

Press, 18 April 1985, Page 9

Hotel on Farmers site just one option

Property reporter

A proposal for Farmers department store, in Colombo Street, to be developed as an international tourist hotel was only one of a number of options that the company which owns the site, Mainstay Properties, Ltd, was considering, said the chairman of Mainstay, Sir Ronald Scott, yesterday. The company had commissioned a firm of Auckland architects, Carac Design, Ltd, to draw up redevelopment proposals for the central-city site. Sir Ronald said that he had received a set of conceptual drawings only yesterday, and had had time “only to glance at them.” Greater details of such fac-

tors as cost were still “somewhere between Auckland and Christchurch.” Other redevelopment possibilities for the site included car-parking, office space, and retail development or a combination of options. Whichever proved to be the best return on investment would be the plan that was adopted, Sir Ronald said. It might be an office block, or it might be a hotel. It was “very early days yet.” Any decision would also have to take into consideration Farmers, which had a 15-year lease. A decision was at least six months away, and it could be two years before any redevelopment began, Sir Ronald said. Whether a hotel would be a viable proposition would

greatly depend on whether the site was large enough to support an international hotel. He agreed that a hotel was a “good possibility.” The rapid growth of the tourist industry in New Zealand, and the urgent need for top-class accommodation, particularly in the South Island, meant that the hotel proposition was an attractive one. “It is a very good site, and there are some indications that big hotel interests are keen,” he said. Several big hotel chains had been in touch with Mainstay recently, he said, but he declined to name them. Mainstay Properties bought the former Haywrights building for more than $4 million in February, 1984.