What to do with the coolest spot in town?
It has some of the best sea views in town, can get some of the most stunning sunsets and has a backdrop overlooking a beach.
But as the saying goes if it sounds to good to be true it probably is - you’ll need at least $12 million to buy it and then need to demolish around $8m worth of buildings just to get started on anything new.
The Fonterra-owned cool stores at Port Taranaki in New Plymouth are up for sale and despite the hefty price tag suggestions on what could be done to replace the ageing 2.58ha piece of industrial land and buildings have been plentiful. One of the more popular ideas was a mixed use area of apartments and parks.
‘‘It is a fantastic coastal location for mixed residence, hospitality and speciality shopping, overlooking a new marina,’’ New Plymouth property developer Harvey Dunlop said.
New Plymouth Design director Murali Bhaskar of Boon, Goldsmith, Bhaskar and Brebner architects, also suggested a mixture of commercial and retail buildings with parks and leisure areas. ‘‘Lots of cool things can be done. Just look at what Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne did.’’
If someone did want to use the cool stores for their intended pur- pose, there are three rooms with a total storage capacity of over 19,000 cubic meters which are independently temperature controlled and capable of maintaining operating temperatures down to minus 25C.
The cool stores were previously used by Fonterra to house its dairy products.
Fonterra couldn’t be reached for comment but the company announced in 2009 that it would store products at its Eltham and Whareroa plants rather than at its facilities near the port.
In 2015, a spokesperson for Port Taranaki said the Fonterra-owned cool stores were at the end of their life and they were planning to pull it down. Port Taranaki chief executive Guy Roper said he had no comment at this stage while the property went through the tender process.