Offers close on ‘once in a lifetime’ Wellington property

Thursday, 15 August 2024

The Courtenay Place Reading complex has been shuttered since 2019.

Offers have closed on the controversial Reading Central property but the real estate agent, overseeing the sale, is remaining tight lipped.

The sale is being run by JLL and managing director Todd Lauchlan who, on Thursday, refused to say if there had been any interest.

“I can’t say anything at all.”

Offers closed at 4pm on the central city property ˗ a five-title, 1.5-hectare block of land owned by the US-based cinema company in the centre of downtown Wellington.

Since the Courtenay Place cinema complex which takes up the biggest portion of the land closed in 2019, its shuttered windows have been seen as a blight on downtown Wellington. In 2022 the Wellington City Council came up with a controversial deal to get it opened.

According to information from the foreign-owned Reading company it was the leak of that deal’s details and a “flood of adverse press” that saw the council “purportedly” cancelling the deal. Soon after, the Reading Central land and adjoining parcels were put up for sale.

Ellen Cotter, one of the Reading owners, was one of the guests at a $1400 meal to hammer out the deal in 2022.

Expressions of Interest to buy the land are open globally.

JLL has listed the five properties – bordering Courtenay Place, Tory St, Wakefield St and Taranaki St and taking up most of a large city block – as a “once in a lifetime opportunity”.

“Offered together, they provide one of the last contiguous, privately owned development properties in central Wellington,” the listing says.

“Development opportunities are extensive, with strong demand in the heart of Wellington City for premium residential developments, retail spaces, restaurants, cafes, hospitality, hotels, and entertainment venues.”

They would be dubbed the “Reading Four”: Wellington City councillors Tony Randle, Nicola Young, Diane Calvert and Ray Chung faced a complaint over leaked information from a secret council meeting about Reading Cinemas. Councillor Iona Pannett was also investigated. The leaker was never found

The council’s deal with the California-based Reading owners was first discussed in council at a closed-to-public council meeting that only showed up in council documents as a “city activation project” in October 2023.

But it was revealed the deal was hatched a year earlier in a ratepayer funded $1400 meal at Ortega Fish Shack in Wellington between Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau, council staff and Ellen and Margaret Cotter, who head the family’s Reading entertainment and real estate empire.

For months, Reading would not talk publicly and council barely gave details, but information leaked out.

The council was looking to buy the land beneath the cinema for $32 million on the understanding that money would be used to fix and reopen the building, which was closed since a 2019 seismic report.

A slide from Reading International's 2023 annual meeting, showing its 1.5ha of land in the centre of Wellington.

First it emerged the council was going to debt-fund the $32m deal, then it was going to sell money-making existing land to fund it.

Meanwhile, the deal was dubbed “corporate welfare” as it meant that 10 years down the track, Reading could buy the land back at the original $32m and pocket any capital gain.

Privately run cinemas were also crying foul as the council was using public money to bail-out a multi-national while they were struggling.

Amid it all, Deputy Mayor Laurie Foon filed a code of conduct complaint leading to five councillors being investigated for leaking. The leaker was not found but the investigation cost $43,000.

Then in February, philanthropist Sir Mark Dunajtschik’s offer to the council to effectively assume the risk to ratepayers, with any profits going to charity, was rejected by the council, as was councillor Iona Pannett’s attempt to scuttle the deal.

The council pulled out of the deal in April.