Ryman cans $240 million central Christchurch village and puts land up for sale

Monday, 15 September 2025

An artist's impression of the proposed Ryman retirement complex on Park Tce, Christchurch. The project has been abandoned and the land will be sold.

Ryman Healthcare has abandoned plans to build a $240 million retirement village opposite Hagley Park in central Christchurch.

The company received consent in 2021 for what was to be its most expensive development in the city yet, a Park Tce complex with six buildings up to seven storeys high.

After delaying construction due to financial constraints, Ryman has now put some of the land up for sale.

It covers 6100m² on the corner of Salisbury St. The land is zoned for high-density housing up to a height of 39m, or 13 storeys.

In the meantime the land has languished, attracting graffiti and rubbish and upsetting neighbours.

Ryman is a public company founded in Christchurch in 1984 that now owns and operates 49 retirement villages in New Zealand and Australia, with 15,200 residents and 7800 staff.

Last year the company announced it would pause all planned new villages if construction had not started after recording a financial loss. It then decided to assess its landbanked sites and consider selling them to reduce debt and reset its balance sheet.

A plan of the proposed Ryman Healthcare retirement village, now defunct.

In the past financial year the annual loss grew to $436.8m.

A Ryman spokesperson said the company identified Park Tce as one of the sites which “do not meet its criteria for future development and where greater value can be delivered for shareholders through divestment”.

The Park Tce village was to have held 155 apartments, 54 assisted living suites, 70 rooms for aged and dementia care, and other facilities.

One of the two neighbouring Ryman sites on Park Tce in Christchurch.

Real estate agency CBRE, which is selling the land for Ryman, is seeking expressions of interest in the land by October 29.

Cameron Darby, director of capital markets for CBRE in the Christchurch office, said the sale offers an “unparalleled opportunity” to plan and build a premium residential development.

The site is a stone’s throw from Hagley Park.

“This is the city’s trophy residential site on the park, presenting a development opportunity that is unmatched anywhere else in Christchurch.

“Opportunities of this calibre simply do not come up in the CBD, with only one comparable sale in the past decade.”

Darby said the scale, position and outlook of the land makes it suitable for a top-end apartment or townhouse development.

The land previously held the Terrace on the Park apartment towers.