St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College to open; Downtown Carpark alternative - Property Insider

The late Māngere multimillionaire Howard Plumley’s $122m donation is partly funding a new school; Ryman Healthcare’s ‘messy’ result; an alternative Downtown Carpark scheme; newest skyscraper topped off. All this is covered in the Business Herald’s column, offering insight into what those on the inside of the property industry are talking about, what worries them, what they’re celebrating, the rises, the falls and who’s doing what.

Savory Construction is nearing completion of a new $80 million Auckland school for hundreds of pupils, due to open in February, funded partly by a $122m gift said to be the single largest donation from a New Zealand person.

St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic College is almost completed on Burtt Rd, Drury, with a fly-over video out last week showing most scaffolding off the three-level red brick blocks finished with a flash of black.

The buildings are arranged in an L-shape in that fast-growing area where dairy cows once grazed and tomatoes were grown.

Landscaping is yet to be completed, internal fit-outs are advanced in the blocks with distinctive window placements and two Wallace Construction prefabs by that subcontractor are at the site where Savory started last September after months of earthworks, completed by another contractor in advance.

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The huge endowment came from a late low-profile Auckland farmer. Howard Plumley became enormously wealthy selling city-fringe property yet lived frugally.

Auckland Catholic Diocese general manager James van Schie said the Plumley fund assisted the development of the diocesan school, to be run in the Jesuit tradition: “This is being funded through a mixture of debt, land sales, donations and the Harold Plumley Endowment. The final construction costs are subject to the timing of future stages, design and commercial negotiations over the coming years but will likely be in the range of $70m to $80m.”

Harold Plumley, called Scrooge by even his friends, became New Zealand's largest charitable donor on his death in 2016 by leaving $122m to the Catholic Church. Photo / Supplied

Plumley had no children and died in 2016 aged 91, resident of a modest Māngere house he lived in for at least 60 years. His will bequeathed most of his $122m to the Catholic Diocese of Auckland.

Australian Jesuits said an initial 340 students would attend the new school with the roll growing progressively to 900 by 2030.

“Enrolment applications for the college have now closed as we have reached our maximum intake, demonstrating the strong demand we foreshadowed for Catholic education in this growing southern precinct,” the diocese said in its 2022 annual report.

Drury is home to a new under-construction train station and where Kiwi Property, Oyster Group and Fulton Hogan have 330ha for a city the size of Napier.

Kiwi is into its latest season of earthworks there. Construction is around two years away, beginning on residential superlots which will be sold to group house builders, Kiwi CEO Clive Mackenzie said last week.

‘Messy’ result, site abandonment, sales: Has Ryman lost its nerve?

“Messy” was how analyst Stephen Ridgewell of Craigs Investment Partners summed up the relatively poor H124 Ryman Healthcare result out last Wednesday.

The retirement village giant downgraded its prior build rate guidance, confirmed it has stopped work at three sites and was selling two, all as part of a major restructure of its build rate.

“These measures are all sensible given Ryman’s current trading but are equally the measure of a company in some distress with little risk appetite and trying to clean up a litany of errors. Ryman will eventually recover [after all, its brand with residents is still strong, even if its brand with investors is not] and the shares are cheap, but investors need to understand this process will be both long and quite painful,” he said.

Ridgewell recommends Summerset Group over the Russley Rd-headquartered Ryman: “Investors who are heavily in Ryman should make at least a partial switch from Ryman to Summerset, in part due to the larger number of skeletons in Ryman’s closet, and also because of the more robust trading results from Summerset, better strategic positioning and best in class execution.”

Alternative scheme put forward for Downtown Carpark redevelopment

Plans by Love & Co for the Downtown Carpark site, a scheme not chosen by Auckland Council but one submitted for consideration.

Precinct Properties last month struck a $122m conditional deal to buy the Downtown Carpark but what might others have done?

An alternative scheme from developer John and Josephine Love’s business Love & Co was put forward with a proposal designed by Andy Anderson of Jasmax. That, like Precinct, proposed two towers with a laneway in between, a mix of hotel, build to rent and luxury apartments, with food and beverage, retail, parking and other uses.

The scheme proposed demolishing the lower Hobson St flyover as a public realm initiative, also giving a “stronger address” to any redevelopment.

Anderson and the Loves worked together successfully designing The CAB where people have lived for months but the remaining units including all three penthouses were yet to sell. That development converted the old Auckland Council offices into apartments.

Auckland’s newest tower topped off this week

51 Albert St, Auckland CBD, nearing completion. Photo / Alyse Wright

IHG Hotels & Resorts, Icon, Ninety Four Feet, Scott Carver and Neoscape are inviting guests to a new Hotel Indigo topping off on Thursday. .

The 41-level tower has risen on the site of the heritage Macdonald Halligan Motors building, its facade retained in a vision of what was once there and what’s now gone. The back and front facades of the historic building remain, in an example of facadism, a practice widely condemned in the architectural community.

The $250m project is near the Wyndham St intersection, opposite Manson TCLM’s $650 million 50 Albert development, where Spark is moving once that’s finished.

51 Albert is a hotel/apartment scheme: the 225-room hotel and 30 upper-level or “sky” apartments.

Icon built the tower, funded by Australian private lender Merricks Capital, which has its name prominently on the scheme.

A spokeswoman for global hotel business IHG Hotels & Resorts said that the new tower would be a significant addition to operations.

“When Hotel Indigo opens in 2024, we’ll have tripled our presence in Auckland since 2020,” she said.

Here’s to a lofty pre-Christmas party.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.