What may happen in property this year – and what are this weekend’s Lotto numbers? Welcome to this year’s first Property Insider column and hope you’ve had a good break. Take a deep dive into the future, although that comes with a warning – zero powers of prediction
Property Insider: 6 of the biggest themes likely to dominate 2025
Seascape, the 183m tall apartment skyscraper, dominates Auckland's skyline. Photo / Jason Oxenham
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But thinking along the lines of projects and actions, here’s what could happen.
Ghost tower Seascape, vast new Sylvia Park Ikea’s final-quarter opening, Precinct’s Downtown Car Park project, Building Act reform, New Zealand Retail Property Group’s Westgate expansion, the FMA/PwC legal action versus Du Val and our new fast-track development law: these topics could dominate our year.
But honestly, who knows?
The exciting thing about writing news is that one never knows what will happen, hence the “new” in that word.
Ah well, Property Insider is just pointing out to you first off that she has zero powers to predict the future, hence that little gambling gag.
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But here are six topics which may be a focus throughout 2025.
Ghost tower Seascape
What a testament to how wrong things can go in property, particularly construction.
Forlorn, like a dinosaur skeleton, abandoned on Auckland’s skyline, with no immediate spectre of work resuming but more action on the court front seeming likely.
What a mess.
Please, just finish it. Let the work resume. Don’t leave us hanging, you Chinese property moguls.
For the last five months, the action has been more of a legal nature than construction-related.
On August 2, China Construction won its Building Disputes Tribunal ruling from John Green that developer Shundi Customs must pay it $33 million.
Seascape is between Customs Street East, Gore St and Fort St. It stands 187m tall, which, when completed, will be New Zealand’s tallest apartment tower and have 221 apartments. The project also includes the development of two associated buildings in the same city block. Once completed, the overall project will include dining, retail and a hotel.
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On August 23, China Construction went to the Auckland District Court to have its winning determination entered as a judgment.
On August 27, the builder wrote to China Construction Bank,advising that it considered Shundi had repudiated the contract.
Shundi Customs then went to the High Court at Auckland, trying to stop the builder’s legal steps, Stephen Hunter KC representing Shundi Customs versus Graeme Christie, acting for China Construction.
After an October 24 hearing, Justice Peter Blanchard issued a November 11 decision.
Justice Blanchard heard Shundi Customs’ application for interim orders pending judicial review of that tribunal decision and its application to set aside China Construction’s statutory demand.
He noted the builder had been paid more than $300m on the project to date but also noted it had made 150 applications for extensions of time.
Justice Blanchard declined to set aside the statutory demand but also prohibited China Construction from bringing any further action or continuing proceedings.
Work has not resumed. Other contractors are talking about bidding to finish the building. What next?
Ikea opens this year
In happier news, Swedish giant Ikea will debut its first Kiwi store in this year’s final-quarter opening at Sylvia Park.
That’s the plan at this stage.
So let’s hope New Zealand’s busiest builder Naylor Love is moving ahead fast, closing in that bright blue store beside the railway line.
Get ready for some flat-pack heaven and stylish display “rooms” where you wander in a true retail dreamlike state to imagine how your kitchen, bedroom, bathroom or lounge could look.
Property Insider did notice a bright green van on the motorway this month, offering flat-pack assembly, with the tempting logo “save your marriage”.
Nice bit of advertising there.
Maybe they will just be getting a lot busier.
Downtown Car Park replacement
Biggest development planned, taller than that stalled ghostly Seascape – prepare for, yet again, another change on Auckland’s downtown skyline ... and the end of cheap downtown car parking.
Towers of 41 and 56 levels to exceed the height of record-breaking Seascape are planned for Auckland’s Downtown Car Park, according to its fast-track application on the Ministry for the Environment site.
The application tells of huge plans.
The project comprises the demolition of the existing carpark building and the construction of two towers.
- Tower one at approximately 56 levels or 222.5m high, west of the existing Aon House tower;
- Tower two at approximately 41 levels or 164.5m high is to be built closer to Lower Hobson St on the western side of the site.
Get ready for the bottom end of town to undergo this massive change, a block back from the waterfront.
Building Act reforms
While leaky buildings are still being uncovered and apartment owners enduring heartache like Victopia’s $62m fix, the law governing new buildings is about to be relaxed.
Why? Because we need more houses. Property Insider was told just this month of one unlucky group of Auckland apartment owners stunned to get a quote of $700,000/unit. They evidently baulked at that and sought lower quotes.
And that $700,000 will perhaps be only the beginning because it’s only when deconstruction occurs that the true scale of non-compliance is uncovered.
At the same time last year, as Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk unveiled reforms, an Auckland Council building boss was regularly posting videos uncovering non-compliant work on the city’s buildings.
In a somewhat unprecedented move, council field surveying manager Jeff Fahrensohn posted a series of shocking videos on LinkedIn.
The building inspector chief wrote two months ago: “A licensed building practitioner has left the owner with an expensive job to remediate. I assume they thought they could plaster and silicone-cover a lot of these issues.”
John Gray, Home Owners and Buyers Association president, expressed concerns about relaxing the law on inspections and certifications.
He agrees we need more homes – but not those where owners get shocking $700,000/unit repair quotes.
Mark Gunton’s new town centre
Westgate: data centres, Costco and now Tesla and so much more at what landowner New Zealand Retail Property Group (NZRPG) calls “the largest master-planned town centre development ever undertaken in New Zealand”.
The under-reported-on Maki Centre beside Costco Fuel was listed by CBRE at the end of last year as Auckland’s second-largest retail development after Ikea.
Tesla will open a giant shiny new showroom at that Maki Centre this year.
None of this is in the domain of any listed company able to freely tap shareholders for cash.
It’s all the work of a team headed by Westgate owner Mark Gunton.
He’s hardly a household name and you don’t see him flying on private jets, chartering boats, cruising the Med during our winters or playing in the snow at Queenstown.
But along with general manager Campbell Barbour, NZRPG has built Auckland’s first new town centre after Manukau and Albany.
“Westgate Town Centre is home to New Zealand’s largest Mitre 10 and Bunnings stores, alongside three identifiable shopping precincts: Westgate Shopping Centre, Westgate Lifestyle and Northwest Shopping Centre. In late 2022, the first Costco store in New Zealand opened in Westgate Town Centre,” NZRPG says.
What some refer to as the old and new Westgates are the urban hubs on either side of Don Buck Rd.
And it’s all about to expand further eventually with apartments in a super-sized version of Sylvia Park.
A new year, a new Du Val court hearing
The sorry, long-running saga of this business is set to continue this year.
We already know what is set to happen because a judge last year issued a series of dates.
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and PwC case against townhouse and apartment developer Du Val and Charlotte and Kenyon Clarke has been set down for a three-day hearing in the High Court at Auckland in June.
Justice Jane Anderson issued procedural directions in the case last month.
She held a telephone conference during which she set timetabling in the now-protracted matter where there are 67 respondents including Du Val Group, the Clarkes, Du Val Mortgage Fund and Du Val BTR GP.
Justice Anderson set a time for when the Clarkes had to state if they had legal aid and gave them opportunities to file submissions opposing actions against them and their many companies.
- February 14: Update on the Clarkes' legal aid position due;
- March 7: Receiver PwC to provide an update to court;
- March 21: FMA to file any updated affidavit evidence in support of its application;
- April 16: Clarkes to file notice of opposition and affidavits;
- May 9: FMA to file any evidence in reply;
- May 30: Clarkes to file submissions in response;
- June 16: Three-day hearing to commence.
On the go-fast
This is the year of going fast for more than 100 new developments.
We now have the new Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 in which 149 projects are approved for speeds exceeding the usual, out of a total of 384 which applied.
Expect a start on many.
Even though it didn’t make the act, the $400m+ Devonport town centre regeneration project has consultants aplenty.
Its application for fast-tracking via Peninsula Capital’s Berridge Spencer, Graham Turley and Mark Hiddleston showed their hand more clearly than we’ve seen previously.
And still, this Devo scheme’s developers can make a subsequent application and be included under the act.
Many more projects are nearing completion, including the City Rail Link and SkyCity’s New Zealand International Convention Centre, which is due to be finished by the end of this year.
Simplicity Living’s build-to-rent schemes will advance quickly this year, particularly the huge new Te Reiputa at Mt Wellington, where it is building 297 apartments.
What about the housing market?
Further property questions:
- Will our economy recover from recession this year?
- How much further will interest rates fall?
- What will that mean for the housing market?
It’s all too obvious to ask these real estate questions really, isn’t it?
Right, that’s enough, leaving that to all those ranks of many others who do that.
On with ′25.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
