Former councillor Lindsay Thomas pushes for CBD demolition action
Wednesday, 20 November 2019
A former Invercargill City Councillor fears two CBD investors could walk away from the city block project if the green light isn't provided soon to start demolition.
Lindsay Thomas was both an Invercargill City Councillor and an HWCP Management Ltd director up until the October election.
HWCP is the company which acquired almost an entire city centre block with plans to demolish and develop it.
Thomas told Stuff on Wednesday that it should be all hands on deck at ICC to ensure demolition could get underway.
**READ MORE:
* Council calls extraordinary meeting to discuss city block
* Businesses closing doors as Invercargill CBD developers eye demolition
* Invercargill CBD development all go, Farmers the anchor tenant**
He acknowledged there was a process to work through, in regard to obtaining building consent and signing off traffic and demolition management plans, but Thomas said getting it sorted ASAP was vital for Invercargill.
However a council spokesperson told Stuff 'matters are well progressed'.
The spokesperson said four management plans would likely be signed off by the end of the month.
'Significant steps have been made… with the applicant having secured variations to some of the resource consent conditions, which should streamline the process.'
Four building consent applications have been lodged. Two of them were ready for signing off, subject to some conditions under the resource consent, the spokesperson said.
Council was still awaiting further information from the applicant in relation to one consent application, while the fourth consent application was only lodged on Tuesday.
Thomas believed the city block development was critical for Invercargill's future and there needed to be signs of progress.
'If you are a tourist to town now you would wonder what is going on [with the empty CBD]. But if there is construction they can see there is something happening in the city.'
Secondly, Thomas was worried that continued delays could potentially prompt investors to walk away.
'We can't make them wait,' he said.
It's understood the project's key private investors, Geoff Thomson and Scott O'Donnell, had become frustrated after they initially hoped demolition would start last month.
An agreement is in place with anchor tenant Farmers to have them up and operating in the new retail precinct by November 2021.
As part of the agreement, 25 percent of the other retail outlets around Farmers need to be operational at the time it opened.
For a second straight day ICC called an unplanned extraordinary meeting on Wednesday where the CBD project was the discussion topic.
Councillors held a closed workshop meeting on Monday where the CBD block development was discussed. Councillors were then asked to attend an extraordinary meeting at 5pm on Tuesday.
On Wednesday morning it was revealed there was yet another extraordinary meeting called for 5pm that day.
The meeting was again moved into public excluded soon after it started.
The council has committed to spending up to $30 million on stage one, two, and three of the city block development.
The first three stages of the project are estimated to cost $160m and will see car parks, retail spaces, and a food precinct built.
The other investors announced in August were Provincial Growth Fund [$19.5m - loan], O'Donnell family [up to $25m], and Thomson [up to $25m].
A bank loan of about $50m would make up the remainder of the funds.