Retirement village providers plan 580 new units for Auckland, Napier

Land at Hobsonville which Metlifecare is buying.

Plans for 580 new Auckland and Napier retirement village residences took a step forward today when two NZX-listed businesses announced progress on their projects.

Glen Sowry of Metlifecare. Photo/Warren Buckland

Glen Sowry, Metlifecare chief executive, said the purchase of a 5.3ha Hobsonville site was now unconditional and plans for 264 units in a $200m-plus project were progressing.

The Overseas Investment Office approved Metlifecare's application to buy the site, Sowry said. Metlifecare must apply to the state authority because more than 25 per cent of its shareholders are classed as being foreign or living overseas.

Sowry said Metlifecare would develop its Orion Pt waterfront site into 264 residences and a 36-bed care home.

Julian Cook, Summerset chief executive, said that business had bought a 9ha Napier site on Eriksen Rd at Te Awa for a 320-residence village.

Cook said the Napier village would be Summerset's fourth in Hawke's Bay with villages in Havelock North, Hastings and Taradale. Two and three-bedroom independent villas and one-bedroom serviced apartments, a rest home and hospital care would be built on the site, he said.

Sowry said the Hobsonville purchase was expected to settle in July and construction would start next year. Metlifecare is buying the land from a family, he said.

Julian Cook of Summerset. Photo / Stuart Munro

The village would be built in four stages and be finished by 2020. Metlifecare has 28 villages of which 18 are in Auckland.

Summerset already has a big retirement village at Hobsonville, on the northern side of the motorway across from Hobsonville Pt.