$200m apartment plan revived

Long-delayed plans for the first of a $200 million apartment scheme at the North Shore’s Milford have been reignited, with the developer preparing a building consent application for the first $100m-plus block.

Campbell Barbour, NZ Retail Property Group (NZRPG) general manager, said last week paperwork was under way for a nine-level 63-unit block to be built beside the existing Milford Centre retail hub, facing Omana Rd.

“We’re going through a building consent process at the moment. We’ve already got a resource consent,” Barbour said of plans for the luxury block where units are planned to sell for $1.5m to $5m. That could yield about $120m but no overall price of the project is available yet.

Barbour said although initial plans dating back to 2016 had not proceeded, NZRPG would still go ahead with the project.

In 2016, it marketed units from $1.7m to $6m for its first block on a site off its outdoor carpark facing Milford Rd.

The Milford was to have 115 units and construction was due to start in February, with the first residents to move in mid-2019. An apartment display suite was opened in September 2016 in the ex-ASB bank retail outlet in the mall.

The Milford Residents Association had strongly opposed the scheme and plans went to the Environment Court, although some association members later expressed interest in buying units. But the association said it had won victories over the project, with the height reduced from 60m to 45m.

In November, 2017, NZRPG put the scheme on hold and initial works stopped.

Barbour said at the time high bank borrowing costs, falling house prices, low presales and delays getting contract building prices prompted it to delay building the first 115 apartment units and 20 new shops.

But last week, he said: “We’ve been undertaking some off-market pre-sales, with people we have been dealing with previously. Eventually, we will go for a full, on-market programme.”

The current plan was to develop the first block behind The Warehouse.