Aotea Station: High-rise plan unveiled for Auckland underground station site

Tuesday, 9 March 2021

A development deal has been done for a 21 storey high-rise above City Rail Link's Aotea Station site.

A dramatic 21-storey high-rise building costing almost half a billion dollars has been unveiled to be built above one of Auckland’s new underground rail stations.

A Malaysian developer has agreed to pay $40 million to the Auckland Council for a 125-year lease of the former car park site at the corner of Wellesley St and Mayoral Drive, under which City Rail Link’s underground rail station will open in 2024.

The design includes 60 apartments, commercial and retail space, and a public plaza leading out of Aotea Station.

A steeply sloping roofline, which is intended to avoid shade being cast across the adjacent Aotea Square, will have “terraced planting” as a key feature, the developer said.

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An artist’s impression of the proposed 21-storey high-rise building above Auckland's Aotea Station.

The deal is the first for major developments directly above two new underground stations on the 3.5-kilometre City Rail Link twin tunnels, which comprise the country’s costliest transport project at $4.4 billion.

The developer, Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad (MRCB), has done the deal, which is one of the biggest in dollar terms negotiated for an Auckland Council-owned site.

The site on the corner of Mayoral Drive and Wellesley St had been an open car park for council vehicles, following the 2016 demolition of the former Griffiths Building, which had become unsafe.

An artist’s impression of Aotea Station, which is due to open in 2024 as part of Auckland's underground City Rail Link.

David Rankin, chief executive of the council development agency Panuku Development Auckland, said: “MRCB has a long history of quality transport-oriented developments in Malaysia and is committed to transforming the Mayoral Drive site to appeal to those wanting vibrant inner-city living and a low-carbon lifestyle.”

The proposed 21-storey development above Auckland's downtown Aotea Station site features a steeply sloping roofline.

Rankin said the deal was significant not only because of its size, but also because of where it sat in the inner city.

“It’s in the midtown area, which has kind of struggled in the last couple of decades, with the bulk of investment being in the lower [waterfront] part of the city,” Rankin told Stuff.

Panuku said the high-rise, called Aotea Central, had a development value of $452m and would sit atop what is expected to become the country’s busiest rail station.

Construction will begin after the completion of the station in 2024, and is expected to take about three years.

Aotea Central will sit at the southern end of the station, which stretches 300 metres down Albert St to a second entrance on Victoria St.

A further high-rise development site is above the Mercury Lane end of Karangahape Station, and a large area will be developed around Mt Eden station where the line emerges from a tunnel.

Rankin said Panuku and Kāinga Ora were working together on the process for attracting bids for the council- and government-owned site above the Karangahape Rd station.

“The focus has been on nailing this, which has taken about two years,” he said.