Heritage Auckland Council HQ on track to be sold and turned into apartments

Friday, 31 May 2019

The Auckland Council Civic Administration Building and surrounding area will undergo an up to $300 million redevelopment.

The contentious three-year process to clinch the sale of Auckland Council's former headquarters remains under wraps, with verbal shots being fired between the mayor and his opponents.

The historic-listed Civic Administration Building on Aotea Square was provisionally sold in 2016 for a sum which remains unknown, but a final settlement has yet to be made.

Tawera Group plans to turn the vacant 16-storey tower into apartments, although major work has yet to begin in a building with well-known and costly problems.

Impression of re-developed Auckland Civic Administration Building in Aotea Square

Councillors spent more than five hours behind closed doors, divided over the merits of the 2016 contract which the council said was still in force.

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Impression of re-developed Auckland Civic Administration Building and adjacent buildings in Aotea Square

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'It's a thoroughly bad deal for Aucklanders,' said councillor Mike Lee, a possible mayoral challenger, whose bid to halt the process was defeated 13-4 in a vote behind closed-doors.

'The original deal must be cancelled, and the property should be taken back to the market,' said mayoral challenger John Tamihere.

Behind the sparring though is a complicated saga surrounding a building which struggled to find a buyer when the council moved to offices accommodating five times as many staff, in the wake of the 2010 amalgamation of eight local bodies.

The CAB was Auckland's first skyscraper, opening in 1966 as the headquarters of the Auckland City Council, and now has Category A heritage protection.

When the council outgrew it, its future was clouded by the need to remove asbestos from it's interior, and replace its facades in the original style.

Estimates in 2014 suggested refurbishing could cost $80 million, and demolition $24 million, for a building council officials said was surplus to requirements.

The 2016 sale to Tawera, prior to Phil Goff's election was for an undisclosed but nominal sum, and at the time the developer expected conversion to apartments, and construction of a new adjacent building could cost $300 million.

The planned apartments have been marketed for several years, but significant construction work has yet to begin, and milestones in the agreement have been extended.

The sale agreement came back to councillors on Thursday, following the decision by the board of the council development agency Panuku, to finalise the deal with Tawera.

'Of all the options commercially viable for ratepayers (in 2016) this deal was the best,' said Goff.

Tamihere in a statement said in the intervening years, the value of the property had risen, but refused to disclose where he got the $3 million price tag from.

Goff said Tamihere voted in favour of the sale in March 2016, when representing the Independent Maori Statutory Board on the Finance and Performance Committee.

Tamihere said no other options were presented by Panuku in 2016, and no council documents have ever been made public.

Goff hopes the deal with Tawera can be concluded 'soon'.

'If they do not meet the terms of signing the agreement we are back to square one,' said the mayor.

Panuku which is managing the sale, would not disclose details.

'An announcement will be made as soon as the agreement is concluded which, although we do not have an exact date for, we expect will be very soon,' said the agency in a statement.