$110m apartment pre-sales at The International before work starts

How the interior of a penthouse place at The International could look.

Apartment pre-sales in Auckland's ex-Fonterra office block have exceeded the $110 million mark and construction work is due to begin before Christmas.

Gary Groves of Sanctuary Group said earlier this month that pre-sales in the 88-unit project had reached $100 million but this morning he updated that to $110 million.

"We're looking at early December," he said of a construction start date for the $200 million project to convert Fonterra's former headquarters into luxury apartments.

An artist's impression of The International apartments planned for Auckland.

The International was certainly not one of the Auckland apartment projects which had been cancelled, he said, following information from Colliers International that 35 Auckland apartments had been cancelled in the last year alone.

"If anything is going ahead, this is. We've got Fletchers to build it. We've got finance," Groves said.

"I've had some real estate agents talk to me about other real estate agents, asking me if it's going ahead. It's definitely project jealousy because they [rival agents] haven't sold any.

"I've not given the product to many. A lot of banks have gone off project that are sold offshore. This is the other extreme," Groves said, emphasising that many locals had paid deposits.

"You can tell them to call me because I'd be very interested to hear from someone that knows more about the project than me."

Sotheby's had sold most of the units, he said.

How the view from an apartment at The International might look..

Avondale's 91-unit Flo apartments was cancelled this month when developer Jon Sandler found construction costs escalated 20 per cent in a year and bank lending became harder.

Groves announced a $15.3 million pre-sale of The International's penthouse apartment on October 10. That place is to be 678sq m, about three times the size of many suburban houses.