Carter Group launches $500m industrial park

Friday, 5 June 2015

Tim Carter, left, Selwyn MP Amy Adams, Lyttelton Port of Christchurch chairman Trevor Burt and Philip Carter at the industrial site.

Former Christchurch City councillor Tim Carter is the launch person for a Rolleston industrial park that will be worth $500 million when finished.

Carter is the son of NBR Rich lister Philip Carter. Their South Island Industrial Port, branded 'IPORT', in Rolleston, is the first significant industrial development by the group for some time.

The logistics park located on 122 hectares of industrial-zoned land was bought from farmers, and already 27ha has been sold to Lyttelton Port of Christchurch which will work closely with Carter Group given they have adjoining sites.

Containers will flow across the boundary between LPC and Carter land under Tim Carter's plan. The initial servicing of the site with sewerage and roads will take nine to 12 months.

'A huge advantage for companies locating at IPORT will be the shared boundary with LPC's inland port …,' Carter said.

'We're working closely with them to make sure we've got this open boundary.'

Two-thirds of the 95 hectares held by IPORT would be developed by the Carter Group, which had earmarked stage one sites that shared the common boundary with LPC, for lease.

The remaining third of IPORT's 95 hectares would be sold freehold to industrial developers that wanted their own piece of land at the hub.

The use of rail to transport containers to and from IPORT, would resulting in a significant reduction in transportation costs and fewer congestion delays at peak times at Lyttelton Port (LPC), Carter said.

He would not give guidance on how much the family group had spent in getting IPORT this far, except to agree the figure was tens of millions of dollars.

The eventual $500m total would include the cost of commercial buildings with the bulk of those to be delivered in subcontracted 'design and lease' projects, managed by Carters.

Philip Carter is worth $120m according to the NBR 2014 Rich List.

Land sale records show that for a 27ha piece of 'lifestyle' land off Jones Rd, Rolleston Industrial Holdings (owned by the Carters) paid $8.4m in March, 2013 and then sold it to LPC for $24.3m in November 2014. For another larger 63ha 'pastoral' piece of land, the Carter Group paid $1.2m in March 2013.

There was also the potential for companies to link between the site and PrimePort Timaru, Carter said.

Part of the group's choice to buy the land at Rolleston, as a significant regional hub, was the stage 2 extension of the Christchurch southern motorway. About 92 per cent of all Lyttelton Port exports already flowed through Rolleston, on the main trunk and Midland rail lines or via State Highway 1.

Carter said figures from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) showed the extended motorway would be able to carry more than double the traffic volumes of the present route, bringing added benefits to the region.'

Based on 2041 traffic figures supplied from NZTA, the motorway would halve travel times between Rolleston and Christchurch's central city from around 30 minutes to 15 minutes, which compared well with other cities, Carter said.

The group had worked with Selwyn council 'to build on the Izone success'.

Already five large 'agricultural producers (and) transport operators' had indicated interest in the IPORT site. 'They're very interested in co-locating by Lyttelton port,' which handled 376,000 container equivalents annually, Carter said.