Developer keen to sell site of major housing plan
Friday, 10 November 2023
Housing developer Williams Corporation might abandon what would be their biggest housing development yet as they look to offload a $30 million-plus site in Hornby, Christchurch.
The company has an application before Christchurch City Council for resource consent to build 274 townhouses and 80 commercial units on the former Gough Group caterpillar site on Amyes and Branston roads.
The sale is part of a potential $60m sell-up by Williams Corporation, which is also seeking buyers for a $5m development site in Avonside, and one each in Auckland, Tauranga, Lower Hutt and Brisbane.
The company is Christchurch’s biggest housing developer, with 259 new homes consented in the city last year, and about the same number in other centres.
It is also actively seeking more land, and is advertising to buy sites within the central city and up to 7km outside it.
Williams Corporation general manager Kathryn Marshall said they had been approached to list the property, and would continue the development themselves if a suitable deal was not reached with a purchaser.
“With the current market, a lot of developers have plans on the table. It gives us a choice of where to deploy our capital.”
Marshall said if they did not sell the site, they would opt to develop it in stages rather than all at once.
“In the meantime, we are going ahead with the consent.”
The company does not yet own the land, but has a contract with its existing owners, investment company 24 Amyes Ltd, to purchase it when the resource consent comes through.
If Williams Corporation finds a buyer it will onsell the land on the same day they purchase it, in what is called a contemporaneous settlement.
Several other developers in Christchurch are also seeking to sell land earmarked for housing as construction costs rise and real estate prices sit flat.
They include the former All Seasons Hotel site on Papanui Rd, owned by Merivale Villas Ltd, the Bowenvale Heights subdivision block in Bowenvale Ave owned by GCO Group, and the former Kiwi Holiday Park in Linwood Ave, owned by Inspire Residential.
GCO director Andrew Bendemski said they were not being squeezed by the market, but would sell if they got the right price.
The 5.1 hectare Hornby block comprises seven commercial buildings plus bare land.
In 2020, the Gough family sold the land for $14m to 24 Amyes Ltd, which is leasing out its various premises to industrial businesses.
The resource consent bid is for semi-detached and terraced homes one, two or three storeys high in 78 separate buildings.
Internal streets, green communal spaces and a playground are also planned.
Market indications suggest the site would fetch more than $30m, while Bayleys real estate agent Sam Stone, who is handling the sale for Williams Corporation, confirmed they were expecting less than $50m.
Stone said Williams Corporation was “considering spending their capital elsewhere”.
The price was negotiable, and the land would be made significantly more valuable by the addition of a resource consent attached, which he said was due within a few weeks.
“We have probably four parties interested at the moment. They are looking at their options.”
Stone said as the development project was a major one, those interested were “the big guys”.
“The land, that’s only a small part of the cost. There’s a large amount of capital required to complete the development”.