Cool stores vision goes on

The dream is craft beer breweries, apartments overlooking New Plymouth’s Ngāmotu Beach, and office workers sipping coffees in the sun, and the developers behind it aren’t giving up on bringing that dream to life.

Seaport Land Company, made up of Russell Nagel, Ben Hawke, and David Hawke, purchased the 2.58ha former Fonterra cool stores in Moturoa for roughly $1.8 million in June 2018 when it had a capital value of $8.25 million.

Since then, they have poured millions into proposals to turn the huge concrete structures into apartments, offices, shops and restaurants only to be refused consent.

Next month they will try again at a New Plymouth District Council hearing to change the zoning of the industrial area to allow for the type of development they claim could be one of the biggest construction projects in Taranaki history.

The hearing comes two years after they were refused resource consent by an independent commissioner due to the potential and actual adverse effects of noise from Port Taranaki activities, proximity to hazardous facilities and the associated risk.

Their proposal was also deemed as not consistent with the Operative New Plymouth District Plan and the relevant part of the Resource Management Act.

‘‘On a practical level this has meant increasing the scope of work beyond the redevelopment of just the cool stores and creating a conceptual master plan detailing how the larger precinct development could look and function,’’ Ben Hawke said.

They have now teamed up with Warren and Mahoney, the architectural design firm behind well-known multi-use developments such as the Christchurch Rebuild Blueprint and the Wynyard Quarter in Auckland.

The former cool stores haven’t sat empty while the fight continues, in fact, it’s a hive of activity.

The group originally put the price of the development at $115 million but believe it will be significantly more now with what they plan to undertake.

In 2020 when Seaport Land Company submitted for resource consent New Plymouth District Council received 105 public submissions around the proposal – just six opposed the plans in their entirety.

The Seaport Land Company hearing for rezoning will take place on August 10 and August 11 at the New Plymouth District Council Civic Centre.