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An Auckland family group with commercial property interests is spearheading the transformation of Mount Wellington's Lunn Avenue.
Fortis Properties has embarked on a development which offers businesses one of the first opportunities to establish themselves adjacent to Auckland's newest and largest greenfield suburban development; the conversion of Mt Wellington Quarry into Stonefields.
Fortis Properties secured one of only two lots sold recently by Greenstone Group to private investors on the northern side of Lunn Avenue, a vacant 3190 sq m vacant site with a 100 metre street frontage to 20,000 passing vehicles each day.
"The project has been under construction for just six weeks but we are already fielding inquiries from interested parties seeking premises," says David Campbell, associate director of office services at CB Richard Ellis, who has exclusive marketing rights for the development with colleague Cary Bowkett.
"We anticipate that tenants will be able to open their doors upon completion of the Lunn Avenue building in April next year," Campbell says.
JCY Architects developed the plans for a two-level building with double height ground floor showroom/warehouse space and first floor office space.
The structure is now taking shape and, once completed, will accommodate four ground floor tenancies providing about 260 sq m of showroom and warehousing space with roller door access, plus an additional 90 sq m of mezzanine office space if required.
Campbell says flexibility with the design has been retained to connect the units if desired and each will have a prominent profile to Lunn Avenue.
He says the development design was vigorously scrutinised by Auckland City Council's urban design panel which impacted finer design elements.
Requirements call for vehicles to be parked to the side and rear of the site so that the building design will be featured rather than a large car park.
Bulk and location setbacks, along with landscaping, will soften any visual impact from the quarry floor from any commercial enterprise on the Business 4 zoned site above the new Stonefields suburb.
"We expect the showroom component coupled with six-metre stud warehousing will appeal to homemaker businesses such as kitchen and bathroom, electrical and plumbing, flooring and tile, and furniture groups," Campbell says.
Other trade and retail groups such as Placemakers, Kitchen House, Hill & Stewart and Ideal Electrical have recently occupied new premises on Lunn Avenue to serve Stonefields and the extended eastern suburbs. Next door at 57 Lunn Avenue, construction is well under way on a building to be occupied mostly by MasterTrade.
Above the showrooms, the building will contain 1000 sq m of office space, available as a single tenancy or divided into minimum-sized sections of 440 sq m. Sixty square metres of additional decks will overlook the transformation of the Mt Wellington quarry. Access to the first floor office will be by lift or stairs from a central lobby accessed from the street front and rear car park.
The office area enjoys 360-degree views ranging as far as the Coromandel, Bombay Hills and One Tree Hill.
The Stonefields master plan, which is the vision of Landco Land Developments, provides for 2900 dwellings housing 6500 people with the first sections already under construction.
"At Stonefields, we are putting in place the foundations of a community. It will be an attractive, well thought-through and modern urban environment providing homes, employment, schooling and recreation," says Andrew Stringer, general manager of Landco Land Developments.
"The Lunn Avenue development will provide an affluent customer base for businesses focused on servicing the quick residential growth in this area," says Bowkett, a member of CB Richard Ellis Retail Services team. "In addition, there are more than 130,000 people residing within five kilometres of this site in the extended eastern suburbs catchment."
He says the offices will appeal to organisations serving the city fringe and who are looking for something different from the institutional offerings in Auckland's CBD.
"With modern efficient configurations and good amenities, we expect this development to attract and retain a quality workforce that is exasperated with the daily commute on Auckland's motorways," Bowkett says.
Along with the on-site parking, other attractions for staff will be the open green spaces of Mt Wellington and landscaped park areas planned for Stonefields, which will be at the doorstep of the development.
Further down at 63-89 Lunn Avenue, construction is due to start this month on a retail development by the Greenstone Group to provide a total of 2700 sq m for convenience retailers. The development will comprise 15 tenancies and is 75 per cent pre-committed by retailers that will service the area, such as takeaway food, restaurants and bars.
Sylvia Park shopping centre is only three kilometres away down Mt Wellington Highway with motorway access at the Mt Wellington interchange. The Panmure train station is also only one kilometre from the site.
Campbell says the flurry of activity in Lunn Avenue has seen land values increase from $200 to $300 per square metre three years ago to about $600 per sq m recently.
Bowkett says the Mt Wellington development has been ideally timed to take advantage of tight occupancy levels. Research conducted by CB Richard Ellis shows that the overall vacancy level of Auckland non-CBD offices is 6 per cent compared with 6.6 per cent at the end of last year. Vacancies in the prime office market are even tighter across the entire suburban office market at only 2.4 per cent; rent increases being driven by the vacancy tightness. Prime non-CBD office rents now reach upwards of $285 per sq m and average rents have increased by 6.4 per cent during the past year.
The retail market is even tighter than the office market. According to a new survey by CB Richard Ellis, vacancies in shopping and bulky goods power centres in Auckland were just 0.8 per cent with no vacancies in bulky goods power centres.
