Rydges revamp caught up in insurance dispute
Workers have started gutting a central-city hotel so its offshore owners can start repairs as soon as they have their day in court with insurers.
Emmons Developments NZ owns three adjoining properties – the former Rydges hotel building, a retail and car-parking building, and a cleared office tower site – between Cathedral Square and the Avon River in Christchurch.
It has already sued its insurers, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and Vero Insurance, four times over earthquake claims. They have settled twice, banking $43 million for building damage. Some aspects of its protracted claims for damage and expenses remain unresolved.
A dispute over the viability of the parking building, formerly used as a Christchurch City Council public park, has delayed work on the entire site. This includes repairs to the riverside hotel and the rebuild of the Cathedral Square office tower.
The property is immediately next to the site of the city’s new $475 million convention centre, which is due for completion in 2020.
Speaking on the company’s behalf, lawyer Peter Woods of Anthony Harper lawyers said the company hoped to start work on the hotel as soon as the latest case was heard in the High Court in October. The hearing is expected to take five weeks.
Workers have begun stripping the building ‘‘to its bare bones’’ in preparation for the repairs and renovation, he said.
The owners hoped the hotel could be ready to open next year.
‘‘There’s a schedule, but it would be premature to put a date on it,’’ Woods said. ‘‘They want to reinstate it to its former glory. They want it to be the way it was.’’
The hotel building is heavily reinforced and its structure was largely undamaged by the earthquakes. Detailed design work is also expected to begin soon on the office building, formerly the
12-storey Grant Thornton building. The replacement building is expected to be similar.
Woods could not say how much the repairs and rebuilding for the whole block would cost, but described it as ‘‘a very significant project’’. The hotel building, built as Noahs Hotel in the 1970s, was occupied by Rydges Hotel at the time of the earthquakes.
Rydges is now on Latimer Square, and Emmons was likely to seek a new hotel operator for its revamped building.
Woods said the company regretted taking so long to start on the buildings, and apologised to Christchurch people for ‘‘any inconvenience’’. He said its ‘‘hands were tied’’ by the insurance wrangles.
Emmons Developments sole shareholder and co-director is Singapore-based Naoaki Sun. The company bought the buildings in
1990 and refurbished them in 2010. Woods said the company had not yet looked for tenants for the office tower. ‘‘It is too early. They are long-term property holders. They are proud of the property and want their property back,’’ he said.