University to acquire Naylor home site
THE University of Otago is set to acquire the land occupied by the Naylor family home, built by Hugh Naylor in 1923, after it is demolished at the start of next year.
The university’s property services director Dean Macaulay said 63 and 65 Frederick St were important for developing a key new building from the Health Precinct Plan released in 2021.
He said the university’s 25year campus master plan stated the maximum potential of the health precinct would be realised if the university was able to acquire most of the block bounded by Frederick St, Great King St, Cumberland St and Albany St.
‘‘The university’s health precinct plan, released in 2021, proposes constructing a Health Science Building 1 on 63 and 65 Frederick St, a learning and teachingfocused building for shared super labs and wetlab teaching space.’’
The planning and development of a detailed proposal have not progressed to the stage where the council has been asked to consider approving the construction of the Health Sciences Building 1.
Mr Macaulay said the university was in the ‘‘process of deliberately and carefully’’ choosing what activities to take part in, so instead of focusing on budget savings they could innovate and invest to bring in additional revenue.
A sale and purchase agreement was signed between the university and the Naylor family in February last year with the expectation the Naylor family would demolish the house by November 30, 2023.
However, due to delays completing the demolition, the university agreed to an extension to February 24, next year.
The demolition was being done by the present owner of the property, Ann Naylor (Hugh Naylor’s granddaughter), and it was not costing the university anything.
Ms Naylor said the demolition would be done in a sympathetic way, and much of the material would be reused.
‘‘We’re doing it because we want to recycle — we’re not just getting a wrecking ball and knocking the place down and putting it into a landfill.
‘‘We are repurposing the
❛ When they built the stadium that’s when I noticed the cracks in our house getting bigger
building as much as we can because we have the family tie with it and it’s going to be going into building project my partner and I are doing out in Waitati Valley, which is building an accommodation lodge for our equestrian centre.
‘‘Our objective was to recycle everything we can out of the buildings and to relocate the tilt slab building at the back of the section.’’
Ms Naylor said the deal was originally arranged between Ben Naylor (Hugh Naylor’s son) and former vicechancellor David Skegg in 2011.
‘‘It was never anything he wanted to sell at the time but he recognised what was going on with the university when they did a 25year plan around that time.
‘‘Naylors have done a lot of building at the university and Dad thought it was a pretty good option that it went to the university.
‘‘The deal was done that basically if we felt that we would be moving out of the place at any stage we would sell the land to the university.
‘‘So, we’re basically following up on my father’s wishes and as much as we did not want to take the house down it would have had to come down.’’
Ms Naylor said the house was not in great condition after it had developed some cracks.
‘‘The house was no longer in a fit state to be repaired because it was damaged because of the land movement, the house was getting pretty damaged with cracks and things, so it would never ever meet the earthquake standard, like every wall in the place had a crack in it.
‘‘When they built the stadium that’s when I noticed the cracks in our house getting bigger.’’
Ms Naylor said she was going to miss the house.
‘‘It’s a mixed emotions thing, there’s quite a bit of history to the place.
‘‘I lived there for over 30 years, but I’ll be able to see bits and pieces of it every day.’’