Landmark Wellington tower designed by the late Ian Athfield is for sale

Wednesday, 22 May 2019

Australian owners, Talavera Property Group, have placed the high-profile green-tiled office tower, once the headquarters of Telecom New Zealand, on the market.

A landmark Wellington office tower, designed by the late and renowned architect Ian Athfield and once the headquarters of Telecom New Zealand, has been put up for sale by its Australian owners.

The 14-storey, post-modernist style, pale green-tiled building in Manners Street, downtown Wellington, was built in 1988 for Telecom and was occupied by New Zealand's largest telecommunications company in its heyday.

In 2016 the building won the Enduring Architecture Award at the annual Wellington Architecture Awards for its contribution to Wellington's cityscape for more than 25 years.

Australian owners Talavera Property Group put it on the market in 2012, having owned it for about ten years, but did not sell it.

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The building is largely vacant and ready for seismic strengthening and redevelopment.

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Talavera has placed it on the market again with Colliers International appointed the agent.

The building was largely vacant and ready for redevelopment, Colliers said. No seismic rating was disclosed in the marketing material.

The building sits on 1568 square metres of land and has net lettable area of almost 10,500sqm. It includes ground level retail of eight shops and five apartments with separate access and 33 car parks

Colliers investment broker Michelle Chadwick said there was still a tenant in the building.

'This is probably the best redevelopment opportunity this year,' she said.

Chadwick said she had had 'heaps' of interest. The building is being sold by deadline treaty with offers for the building to be lodged with Colliers by 4pm, Wednesday June 12.

Chadwick said Wellington was short of office, residential and hotel stock. The building was suitable for refurbishment for offices, or conversion to a hotel or short-term accommodation or residential accommodation. There were only four hotels in the region with more than 200 rooms each.

Engineering plans showed the building could be strengthened to 100 per cent of the New Building Standard (NBS), she said.

Wellington had record low office vacancy at 6.2 per cent across the city and that was pushing up rents.

The office market was undergoing a transformation to better quality, seismically resilient new buildings or major investment in existing stock to strengthen and raise the quality.

The building was in the Central Area zone in the Wellington City Council's District Plan allowing a wide range of activities including leisure, high-density residential, tourist, cultural, community and civic activities.