Homes in inner city ready to hit market
Christchurch’s first east frame homes go on sale next month, seven years after central city living was identified as a key rebuild strategy for Christchurch.
Roofs have gone onto the first batch of townhouses, to be first sold as part of the east frame’s 900-home One Central housing development. Construction of three further stages of the site’s apartments and townhouses have begun.
Steve Evans, chief executive of residential and land development for Fletcher Living, which is running the development, said despite public concerns at the pace of the project, they were pleased with progress.
‘‘Whilst it’s taken a long time in press terms, the reality is we are on our way.’’
The homes are being built in 13 batches over 10 years, with the Crown transferring the land it bought for the project to Fletcher as needed. Prices across the whole development of 900 homes will range from about $350,000 to more than $1 million.
Post-earthquake, authorities set a target of 20,000 inner-city residents by the year 2024. Before the quakes, the number of residents was 8300, and the population now is understood to be approaching that figure.
Central city businesses, especially bars and restaurants, have been calling for faster progress on building homes to create a nighttime economy for the city.
Evans said that while they must go through ‘‘detailed and lengthy’’ processes before building each stage, they were open to working with the Government and the Christchurch City Council to ‘‘deliver more homes, more quickly’’.
The Crown signed the development agreement for the land with Fletcher Living in December 2015.
The company is hiring contractors to build the townhouses, while construction company Naylor Love is building apartment blocks.
Fletcher Living is an arm of Fletcher Building, which includes the financially troubled Fletcher Construction among its subsidiaries.
The first 20 three-bedroom east frame homes are next to the Christchurch Club and known as Latimer Terraces. They will be progressively finished in the second half of the year.
The next batch, 50 terraced homes and 44 apartments next to the former Inland Revenue office building, have their timber frames up and will be finished next year.
They go on sale when the development’s sales office opens in July.
Construction has just started on the third and fourth stages of 58 terraced homes, the Bedford Apartments on two sides of Les Mills gym. They will be double and triple storey.
Meanwhile on another anchor project two blocks west, construction workers on the convention centre site have installed a 50-tonne truss to support the roof of the under construction auditorium.
Both Crown-run construction projects are part of the central city rebuild plan.
A large crawler crane, travelling on tank-style tracks, was brought in to the convention centre site to lift the 45-metre roof truss to span the 1400-seat auditorium.
Albert Brantley, chief executive of Crown rebuild company O¯ ta¯ karo, said it would be the heaviest lift on the site and one of the biggest in the rebuild so far. The project has used about 10,000 cubic metres of concrete and 150 tonnes of steel.
Brantley said construction was on track to be completed in early 2020.
As well as the main hall, the building will have a 200-booth exhibition hall, a banquet hall and 24 meeting rooms, and shops facing Colombo St. Its 429,000 facade panels have been inspired by Canterbury rivers.
O¯ ta¯ karo is seeking a company to manage the venue, which has been named Te Pae and already has convention bookings.
It also wants a private developer to build a hotel on the site overlooking Cathedral Square.
Elsewhere in the central city groundworks have restarted at the city’s metro sports site after a Government review, while discussions about the city’s planned stadium continue. The new central library is nearing completion, and work continues on the south frame.