A multi-level car stacking system like this one overseas is planned to be installed in Henderson's new 20-level Sero apartments. Photo / Leehan Living
Cars will be stacked 20 levels high in the new Sero apartments being built in the centre of Henderson in a scheme partly underwritten by Crown state housing agency Kāinga Ora.
Bruce Lee of Leehan Living said the system for 66 vehicles would be installed on the sitewhere CMP Construction is doing foundation works and where a $48.5m underwrite was made by the Crown agency.
The stacker for the 115-unit block is coming from GS Parking System in South Korea, he said.
The system is automated, placing cars in empty slots within the racks.
“This saves space, allowing us to offer affordable parking options,” he said.
Single-bedroom units start from $550,000, two-bedrooms from $680,000 and nine three-bedroom units, each with two bathrooms, from $890,000.
Sero was designed by New Zealand architecture firm Herriot Melhuish O’Neill.
About 200m away, Leehan developed the 14-level block, Pacific Tower on the corner of Lincoln Rd and Great North Rd, with 67 apartments, and three retail outlets on the ground floor.
At Sero, Leehan has not begun marketing the units yet and won’t do so until the end of March.
“However, we do have an underwrite agreement with Kāinga Ora for this project, amounting to approximately $48.5 million, which has greatly assisted with the financing of the project,” Lee said.
But an overseas lender has put up more money. New York fund Arena Investors LP is funding $56m of Sero, Lee said.
A Kāinga Ora spokeswoman said: “The under write will only be drawn down if the apartments are not sold. It gives the lender certainty to give money to the developer to build. It’s the Crown saying ‘if these can’t be sold within a certain period, we will buy these apartments’.”
CMP Construction, which is building Sero, was among New Zealand’s 10 busiest builders this year in the BCI Construction League Report.
The business had a site office, equipment and a crawler crane on the site last month. Eighteen of the 20 levels will have apartments.
All walls will be in-situ concrete.
CMP is Victoria Park-headquartered, founded and owned by Ron Macrae. Chiefs include Andrew Moore and Tony Howard.
It has finished the new $150m Remuera Victoria Lane luxury apartments for Richard Kroon and St Heliers’ Kaimata apartments, The Grey apartments in Grey Lynn.
It has also completed Hyde Lane apartments in Wellington’s Alpha St and the $110m Risland Albany.
CMP built Avondale’s new Highbury Triangle apartments for Kāinga Ora.
New headquarters for Atlas Concrete at Takapuna, Wellington’s Hyde Lane apartments and The Pompallier apartments in Auckland are some of its other jobs.
And Queenstown’s new Junction Village carpark building is the start of a wider worker accommodation scheme there, by the same clients building new apartments at Auckland’s Alexandra Park.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.