KEY POINTS:
A listed developer is planning a $31.6 million office tower on a large Greenlane carpark site.
NZX-listed Macquarie Goodman Property Trust and its ASX-listed associate Macquarie Goodman Group jointly own development land at the $100 million Central Park Corporate Centre opposite Penrose High School.
John Dakin, chief executive of the trust's manager, said the New Zealand entity would buy out the Australian group's interest in the land at current market valuation and undertake the new development alone.
The trust has a $1.2 billion portfolio, mainly specialising in the light industrial sector where it has properties in Manukau, Penrose and Otahuhu.
The trust's most ambitious project is the $1 billion Highbrook at East Tamaki, a 193ha site where it is developing a new office township with the Australian group and the estate of Auckland industrialist Sir Woolf Fisher.
But Dakin said Greenlane also held large development opportunities, the key to growing the trust's revenues and returns.
The carpark at Central Park backs on to the Northern Motorway near the Penrose interchange and the new block will intensify building within that office precinct.
The trust's latest annual report showed Central Park was now valued at $104 million and had a 91 per cent occupancy rate.
Dakin said an 8700sq m block would be built on the back portion of the site by November next year.
This will be the first of two new office towers that are allowed to be developed under existing planning laws, he said.
No tenants had yet been found for the block which would be built on an "uncommitted" basis, Dakin said.
However, leasing activity in the Greenlane office belt was strong. Tenants who rent other trust buildings in the area are paying around $265 per sq m so the new bock could generate $2.3 million annual rent.
The trust released its annual result last week. It made $51.8 million after-tax, up from last year's $35.1 million, mainly due to the expanding business sector and rising demand for office and industrial buildings.
