$24m retirement home for Wallaceville
Bupa New Zealand has revealed plans to build a three-storey, 50 apartment retirement home development on a long vacant petrol station site in Wallaceville.
The full cost of the proposed development, including the purchase of the land, is $24 million, Bupa New Zealand head of communications, Lisa Chambers, said.
The company hopes to start the project within two months but the Upper Hutt City Council is yet to approve a final resource consent.
‘‘The ground work will begin in the next couple of months along with the application for building consent,’’ Chambers said.
The development, which includes a purpose build community centre, will link with the company’s Fergusson Village, a two-storey 42-apartment complex on Ward St and the Fergusson Care Home, on the property’s Fergusson Dr boundary.
News of the expansion of the Fergusson Retirement Village, located on the Ward St boundary to the site, follows demolition of the canopy roof and metal framework of the old petrol station.
The demolition of the old petrol station work by Trentham’s RDL Group has been a long time coming.
The high-traffic Ward and Fergusson intersection was the long-time site of the Quinns Post Hotel, in various incarnations, over many decades to the 1990s.
The Challenge petrol station which replaced the hotel was opened in November, 1998 with then Upper Hutt mayor, Rex Kirton, ceremoniously filling the petrol tank of the first vehicle.
But the business did not sur- vive and the property was fenced off and abandoned for years.
The office was vandalised and finally removed late in 2005, leaving the sail-like canopy roof to establish itself as a landmark of sorts.
‘‘I’ll miss the canopy. I hated it at first, but grew to love it,’’ Delys Saunders posted on an Upper Hutt community Facebook page.
‘‘It’s great to see the terrible eyesore on the corner gone,’’ Jocelyn McCawe.
Sandra Stone was glad to learn the land will be used for something useful and put to good use. ‘‘It’s been an eyesore for too long.’’