Revealed: The buyer who paid nearly double CV for Auckland site

The Fanshawe St site which Mansons TCLM has just bought.

Property with $13m CV goes for $23.3m

The identity of the buyer who paid almost double the capital value of a slice of downtown Auckland has now been revealed.

Mansons TCLM, the private Auckland-headquartered family development business, bought the valuable ex-Caltex service station site on Fanshawe St in the CBD and plans a big new office project there.

The site had a CV or Auckland Council valuation of $13 million but Mansons paid $23.3 million for it.

Mac Manson, a director, said the freehold site at 155-167 Fanshawe St near the State Highway 1 motorway offramp was an extremely attractive and valuable location for many office tenants.

"It's a good spot and will be another spec Mansons development," he said of the property. Plans had not been developed but the site's use would be commercial, he said.

The vendor was Chevron New Zealand and was sold via Colliers International. Peter Herdson of Colliers said the price paid was very near a recent commercial valuation but well below the rating valuation which was two years old.

Colliers could not say who bought it, but a check around major developers in the area revealed that.

The site of just under 4000sq m stands between the world headquarters of Air New Zealand and Fonterra, in the rapidly developing Wynyard Quarter opposite Victoria Park.

Mac Manson of Mansons TCLM. Photo/Jason Oxenham

Manson said the site was an obvious purchase.

"We just knew it was going to be a great site and we will build the best possible building we can for the tenants we're working with. The fact that it's freehold opens it up to a raft of international purchasers who don't like leasehold. It just widens the pool," Manson said of an eventual sale of the finished development.