Southern Institute of Technology eyes CBD block for apartments

Friday, 5 July 2019

Southern Institute Institute of Technology apartments are now being earmarked for Invercargill's CBD block development instead of a proposed hotel.

HWCP Management Ltd director Scott O'Donnell said they have been in discussions with SIT officials in recent weeks after they expressed an interest to build apartments as part of the block development.

Southern Institute of Technology chief executive Penny Simmonds says SIT are in the concept plan phase of looking at potential building apartments as part of the CBD development.

The plan is to construct SIT apartments on the corner of Kelvin and Tay Sts.

The apartments would fill the piece of land which was previously earmarked for an additional hotel for the city, on top of the new hotel the Invercargill Licensing Trust is building a block over.

* CBD business shift continues as demolition looms

* HWCP Management Ltd adds new hotel to its planned CBD project**

Invercargill-based hotelier Geoff Thomson - also an HWCP Ltd director - had indicated he was keen to build a hotel as part of the CBD block development.

O'Donnell said they now fully supported SIT's interest in using that part of the block for apartments.

SIT's concept plans included 47 two-bedroom apartments with 188 beds in total.

SIT chief executive Penny Simmonds said it was just a concept plan and stressed there were still some boxes to tick before the SIT Council gave the project the green light.

If the plan to build the apartments does go ahead SIT would buy the land from HWCP Management Ltd and carry out the construction of the buildings.

The ballpark total cost for the fully-furnished apartment buildings was $17 million which would come from SIT's cash reserves.

The hotel build had initially been set down as the sixth and final stage of the wider CBD block development, however, the SIT apartments could now jump the queue.

A condition of the SIT buying the land would be that the corner of Tay and Kelvin St is the first part of the block to be demolished, which would allow SIT to get on with building the apartments.

Simmonds said rental demand in Invercargill was high and she felt they needed to play a role in boosting the accommodation options in the city.

Initially SIT planned to convert its downtown campus on Don St into apartments, when the SIT's operations there moved to the new Creative Centre at the old St John's Church site on Tay St.

However, Simmonds said the completion of the Creative Centre was still another couple of years away and she felt they needed to act now to help increase the accommodation supply.

Turning the downtown campus into apartments remained a possibility down the track, Simmonds said.

SIT's plan to build inner city apartments comes at the same time as Education Minister Chris Hipkins' reform of vocational training, which included a proposed centralised polytechnic merger.

SIT needed to act as if it was business as usual and could not simply play the waiting game, Simmonds said.

If the polytechnic merger was to proceed Simmonds believed there would still be the demand to fill the CBD apartments in the future.

SIT's proposal was two-fold Simmonds said, it would add some much-needed accommodation for students in Invercargill and it would also add to the wider CBD block development.

O'Donnell was thrilled by SIT's interest in being part of the block.

'It would bring more foot traffic, it's student-based people who might eat out more, it also brings culture and diversity to the block,' O'Donnell said.

'It's evolving all of the time.'

SIT's apartment plans were not part of the retail and beverage precinct stage of the project in which the Invercargill City Council was looking at investing in.

The Invercargill City Council was consulting the public as to if it should invest up to $30m into the project.

O'Donnell said once the funding was sorted it would trigger the demolition phase of the project which he expected would take place before the end of the year.

There was an agreement in place with a yet-be-announced anchor tenant to ensure they can be operating by November 2021.

Part of the car parking complex and other retailers would also need to be in place at the same time as part of the agreement.

He was confident they remained on track to meet that date.