Central city development gets the green light as 100 percent sales approaches

Construction work is scheduled to begin shortly at one of the biggest multi-tenancy retails sites in central Auckland.

The substantial redevelopment opposite the Town Hall in the heart of the city’s Queen Street will see the establishment of 60 retail outlets – all to be operated as freehold unit titles, and occupying a total lettable floor space of approximately 819 square metres. The development is named Queens Court.

Some 52 retail units within Queens Court have already been pres-old off plan – representing $20.6million worth of space. The ground floor development at 370 Queen Street sits on the corner site of Queen and Airedale streets directly adjacent to a 10-storey commercial tower, in what was previously a Methodist church chapel.

The retail units range in size from four square metres through to 202 square metres, and vary in price from $185,000 to $1.025million. The development will be known as Queens Court, and is scheduled to open at the end of 2012. The Queens Court concept is being developed by private property developer Equity Growth Trust, part of the Conrad Properties Group.

The 52 units purchased so far have been sold by Bayleys Real Estate commercial saleswoman Millie Liang, who said she was highly confident of completing a 100 percent occupation tenancy before scheduled completion later next year.

“Resource Consent for the Queens Court development has been granted by Auckland Council, and several interested parties were waiting for this to be confirmed before sealing their offers to buy a number of the remaining eight locations,” Ms Liang said.

“In order to gain the Resource Consent, Queens Court developer Equity Growth Trust was required to seek input from the urban design team at the Auckland Council. During that process, positive changes were suggested to improve on the original concept of Queens Court.

“Recognising the merits of those design improvements, subtle changes have been made to the visual appearance of the exterior of the proposed building. Both Equity Growth Trust’s architects and the urban designer think this new look brings a heritage and cultural feel to the building which is more sympathetic to its surroundings, and we happily embrace the suggestions.”

Ms Liang said the new look only relates to the exterior of the building - such as the height of awnings, the type of materials to be used, and an additional entry. She said there had been no changes whatsoever made to the internal layout of the development.

“In fact, an additional entrance to Queens Court on the corner of Queen and Airdale streets will dramatically increase the pedestrian flow and attract more shoppers inside Queens Court than what was originally proposed,” Ms Liang said

Over the past eight years, Conrad Properties Group has been responsible for establishing most of Auckland’s biggest inner-city residential apartment blocks, including: The Eclipse, The Federal, Aura, Altitude, Volt, Zest Apartments, Stamford Apartments, The Harvard, and C-Vu. The company also developed The Soho residential complex in central Wellington.