Two new developments proposed for Viaduct

Two new proposals have been made to the Auckland City Council for commercial developments in the Viaduct Harbour area.

In the first application, Manson Developments disclosed its plans to build three large office, shop and carparking blocks on land fronting Fanshawe St which it bought from Trans Tasman Properties.

It wants to develop nearly all the harbour block between Halsey St and Daldy St for commercial and marine-related retail uses.

Only the Caltex service station would be excluded from the work.

Manson plans 5ha of buildings, including 39,000sq m as offices, almost 7000sq m for parking and about 4000sq m for marine retail space.

It plans to build:

* A seven-level office block of 25,000sq m leased to a call-centre business which would have 700 staff in the building at any time and would operate three shifts a day.

* Two six-level buildings separated by a public open space area with shops on the ground floor.

* A carparking building, with offices and marine-related shops.

A council report said adverse environmental effects related to the buildings' bulk and dominance, design and appearance, tree removal, building activity and site contamination.

The report by the city's manager of central area planning, Vijay Lala, said offices and marine shops were permitted activities on the site and the proposal was consistent with other activities in the vicinity.

He said the plans were in keeping with the height and scale of other buildings fronting Fanshawe St, including Vodafone House.

Some of the parking planned in this development would be needed for Air New Zealand's new building, which Trans Tasman developed.

The other application lodged yesterday is from Abil Viaduct and proposes to demolish the Seamart building at 1 Fanshawe St and put up a five-level office block with basement parking and a restaurant.