Iwi's convention centre bid for 'golden mile'

Tiwana Tibble on the old railway land that he'd like to see a new convention centre built on. Photo / Greg Bowker

An iwi is leading a consortium to develop an international convention centre which it says would turn a derelict area of the city into one point of an Auckland destination anchor.

The Government has called for expressions of interest for a new centre so New Zealand could take a bigger share of a lucrative market, which could draw 22,000 extra visitors a year.

Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board won't say who its partners are but it wants to develop the old railway yards behind Quay St's Vector Arena.

The tribe currently leases the land to Auckland City Council, but chief executive Tiwana Tibble says its proposal would "rejuvenate" an ugly site it had been asking the council to develop for years.

The development includes a centre with 29,000sq m of exhibition space, a possible railway station, an underground carpark, and boulevard access from The Strand.

"We see it as a golden mile. The vision should be that it leads to the development of the whole of Quay Street. We're an anchor site. The two points of the bottom of the anchor are the Viaduct and us, with Queen Street as the middle."

With the Auckland Regional Council bringing back trams to the Tank Farm in time for the Rugby World Cup, there was also no reason a line connecting the two couldn't be paid for by the developers.

That would move tourists around the city sharing out economic benefits, he said.

The Auckland City Council and SkyCity are also in the race.

A feasibility report prepared for the council which weighs up options says the disadvantage of the railway yards is that they are further away from hotel accommodation than mid-city options.

Mr Tibble said that criticism did not bear up under scrutiny, as a railway station would help mitigate that, it would be 15 minutes at most from a range of four- and five-star options and international experience had shown that hotels were often built after convention centres.

The report was self-serving in that it was skewed towards the council's convention centre options.

He also questioned the benefit of giving SkyCity, which wants to build a convention centre on Hobson St, a "double subsidy".

"If SkyCity has a monopoly casino licence, which is a licence to print money, should they get a further subsidy to build a convention centre next to their site to make them more money? I don't think that's right."

SkyCity's Peter Tracey said the company was a great supporter of Ngati Whatua but its bid was simply a response to the Government's request for expressions of interest.

"We are confident that the Government will select the best option for New Zealand," he said.