Low-rise residential community planned for CBD

By ANNE GIBSON


Australians are planning a low-rise $600 million village on the fringe of Auckland's central business district, after getting approval to buy half a city block for $30 million.

And in applying to the Overseas Investment Commission to buy the land, the wealthy, jet-setting Sydney developers showed their sense of humour, using the catchy name 1st Class Baggage.

But Sydney's Mr Doug Rikard-Bell said this was only the entity being used for preliminary work and that the name of the new village had not yet been decided. He promised to unveil more when he arrives later this month.

The commission has accepted the deal to allow Mr Rikard-Bell and his partner Duncan Bull, both of East Sydney property company Emerald Logic, to buy 2.8ha of leasehold land where Mr Rikard-Bell said yesterday they would build an 800-unit project spread over 15 buildings.

He said Sydney architects Innovarchi were designing the 28,000sq m residential, office and shopping centre for the block that stretches between Cook, Wellesley, Morton, Nelson and Sale Sts.

Mr Rikard-Bell said the block was ideal, facing north on a sloping site below Cook St and that the project would bring more green areas to the city.

"This will be a residential community like a village which will introduce as much green as possible," he said, adding that the blocks, each less than 10 storeys high, would be built over five to six years in stages.

Commission approval was needed because the foreigners were buying land worth more than $10 million.

1st Class Baggage bought the block from entities controlled by Auckland businessmen Jamie Peters of Starline Group and Rod Petricevic of Bridgecorp. Last month, Mr Petricevic paid $20 million for a slice of rival financier Dorchester Pacific.

The Cook St site was used as Auckland City Council's depot until it was sold in 1994 for $7.2 million to a Taiwanese developer who planned a 250-unit apartment, hotel and supermarket there, abandoning this scheme in 1996.