Offices reach for the sky

Speculation about demand for a building second only in height to Auckland's Sky Tower was backed up yesterday by industry officials who say tenants need new offices.

The National Business Review reported yesterday that two huge office blocks were being planned for downtown, one to be the country's second-tallest building.

A little-known private company, Landcorp, hopes to build a 40-level tower on the block bounded by the Fanshawe/Customs St West intersection, Albert, Wolfe and Federal Sts, behind the award-winning West Plaza building, it said.

The second large office block is planned by David Henderson's Kitchener Group, which has amended a 38-level apartment tower on the Albert/Swanson St corner to a 30-level block with 10,000sq m of offices.

Property consultancy DTZ chief executive Ross Pickett and agency manager Kevin Richards said Auckland needed a large international-quality office block to satisfy demand.

Kitchener chief executive Chris Aiken confirmed his company's plans, saying the apartment market had changed, so only 18 levels of units would now be built instead of 38. Two levels of shopping and 10 levels of offices had replaced the units.

Richards and Pickett said they did not know any specifics of the largest office block being planned but said tenants were looking for prime new office blocks.

Many had left the CBD to go west to the Viaduct or east to Quay Park, Richards said.

But traditional large accounting and law firms still wanted new buildings in the city's heart.

It was these firms that would drive a new development, he said.

Even DTZ was searching for new offices, having expanded its agency division from 12 people to 23, said Richards.

Auckland property businessman Stu Galloway said the 40-level building being talked about yesterday would cost at least $300 million. But he denied he was involved with plans to put up any tower on the block.

Galloway, who said he was a contractor, is a director of Landcorp and West Plaza Centre. But these companies did not own land in Auckland's CBD, he said.

In 2002, two buildings on the site - 13-15 Albert St and 1-3 Wolfe St - sold to an undisclosed Auckland company for $5.4 million.

Link House and Challenge House are adjoining and have 6830sq m of building on a 1230sq m site with three street frontages adjacent to the Stamford Plaza and Quay West apartment/hotel tower.

Plans were to refurbish and occupy some of the buildings, agents from Bayleys said at the time.