New central Christchurch hotel to replace ambitious apartment tower plan

Thursday, 11 June 2026

An impression of the front of the 60-suite hotel planned for 52 Kilmore St, Christchurch.

Hotel plans have been released for a vacant central Christchurch site where other proposals including a luxury apartment tower have failed to go ahead.

The property, at 52 Kilmore St, is near the Wyndham Gardens hotel and sits between Cranmer Square and Durham St.

The site, right, of a planned new hotel on the empty site at 52 Kilmore St, Christchurch.

Moreover Holdings, headed by Christchurch property developer Nigel Lundy, has applied to the Christchurch City Council for resource consent for the project.

In a purchase settled last month, Lundy bought the property for $1.925 million.

His proposed development building would hold 60 one and two-bedroom apartment suites and be three storeys high.

There would be 16 suites on the ground floor with small courtyards, and 22 on each of the second and third floors. It will not have off-street car parking.

The long building would have a narrow frontage to Kilmore St.

The land has been vacant since an office building was demolished after the earthquakes and is now used for car parking.

An artist’s impression of the The West Kilmore luxury apartments, left, which were planned for 52 Kilmore St. The Rakaia apartments pictured at right were built.

A decade ago another developer, DGM Group, launched plans to develop the land.

The company intended to build the nine-storey West Kilmore Apartments tower with 17 luxury apartments and balconies.

The hotel planned for 52 Kilmore St, Christchurch.

The tower was to have been stage three of a master-planned development, which included the Rakaia Apartments built next door in 2016, and the Juno Apartments which were built facing Cranmer Square.

By 2019 the West Kilmore Apartments plan had been dropped, and the property has been used as a car park since then.

In mid-2024 Williams Corporation launched another apartment plan for the site, which would have seen two buildings with 18 apartments constructed and sold at prices starting at about $500,000. It also did not go ahead.