Lombard block seeks go-ahead
PLANS are well advanced for a big new retail and office block at the juncture of Manners Mall and Victoria St.
Lombard Lane, as the development is currently being called, would replace an old post office and property along Lombard St, not including the Lombard car park. Its backers are Cook Strait Properties, spearheaded by developer Luigi Muollo.
Muollo said resource consent for the development has been applied for and building consent was being worked on over the next few months.
The project borders four streets – Victoria, Manners, Bond and Lombard. It is hoped construction will begin in February or March, and take a year.
Muollo said the cost of the development was confidential. However, there was strong leasing interest, mostly from fashion retailers.
While sources believe British fashion store Top Shop will open in Lambton Quay, Spanish fashion chain Zara is also rumoured to be looking in Wellington.
The Victoria St development will offer 1166 square metres of ground retail space, split into 12 shops, one of which would suit a hospitality operator. Just under 400sqm of office space would be built on the first level.
Manners and Cuba malls are poised to get a major injection of young consumers, ahead of the Weltec/Whitereia creative arts and film campus being built in Cuba St and from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school already operating in lower Cuba.
Wellington City councillor Nicola Young, who leads the central city projects portfolio, said the development would help brighten up Lombard St, which needed ‘‘a bit of love’’. ‘‘The idea is to open it up to bring people into the lane. At the moment, it’s a very bleak little Stalinist laneway, but it has a lot of potential and some of it gets allday sun.’’
The plan involves a land swap with the council giving up a small park at the southern end to create
Wellington City councillor Nicola Young a larger Denton Park in the north.
With 1000 more students moving into the area in the next few years, the council was keen to make the city a more attractive and safe place to live, she said.