Act leader David Seymour and comedian Guy Williams exchanged barbs at a press conference at Waitangi this week.
High-profile Napier hotel the Bluewater is up for sale after a major refurbishment for owner Rodney Green following four years of providing emergency accommodation for the homeless.
The 25-year-old four-storey hotel, near the Pandora end of West Quay and overlooking the Napier Sailing Club marina and the inner harbour, was put on the market on Wednesday by Colliers, seeking “International Expressions of Interest” by March 11.
The 76-year-old Green, who started out in butchery but has become a major player in the accommodation industry, has multiple other business and philanthropic sponsorship interests.
However, he says it’s time for someone else to run the Bluewater, where he was still hands-on in the office when Hawke’s Bay Today called on him about 8am on Friday.
Rodney Green on Friday outside the Bluewater Hotel, ready to move on. Photo / Doug Laing
It’s been a 25-year labour of love for Green, who bought the hotel a year after it was built by the Ross family around 1999.
Green said at the time there were rumours he was involved almost before he knew the Bluewater existed, when he would ask: “What Bluewater?”
He and brother Clinton had only a few months earlier opened the Deco City Lodge, newly-built in Kennedy Rd, Napier, and ultimately he enquired and was encouraged to make an offer.
Having previously turned a small butchery into prominent bacon company Medallion Foods, with more than 100 staff and sold “the day I turned 50″, his accommodation era began.
It includes transforming “at least” six motels into apartments, and multi-billion dollar financial backing of major public projects, starting with saving the Napier City Council’s Centennial Hall at McLean Park, now the Rodney Green Centennial Events Centre.
Others include Napier City Rovers’ football home the Bluewater Stadium, and the Pettigrew Green Arena opened in Taradale more than 20 years ago - extended with a new stadium opened in the last two years with his help and now collectively known as Rodney Green Foundation Arenas.
There is also the Rodney Green Foundation Indoor Training Centre and Turf Training Facility at the Mitre 10 Regional Sports Park in Hastings.
He said the sponsorship proposals, with the foundation now in place, occupy a lot of his time.
The Bluewater Hotel on Friday, a landmark for people arriving in Napier from the north and now for sale on the international market. Photo / Doug Laing
It’s all driven by a “love” for Napier.
The Bluewater Hotel started with 45 rooms in three levels, had a fourth floor added about 2006, and the Ahuriri Tavern, opened in 1967, popularly known as The Round House and around which the hotel is based on 5166sqm of leasehold land, had its top floor converted during the emergency accommodation era to provide.
A landmark for those entering Napier from the north, it now has 66 rooms a restaurant, and the Water Bar, in the Round House, which was built for Leopard Breweries as a trailblazing venue when bar trading hours were extended to 10pm after the end of the six o’clock swill (when bars closed at 6pm.)
Its outstanding features were the circular design, a spiral staircase, and the “Crow’s Nest” at the top, an iconic bar and dance venue.
The development of the hotel became a beacon of West Quay’s transformation from a fishing village and wool store zone to accommodation, restaurant and bar quarter.
Many had jobs, and children, and, with a need for activity so the parents could work, after-school and holiday programmes were run on site.
In 2014, Green was found guilty on two indecent assault charges stemming from incidents as a group were transported in a stretched limo back to the Bluewater Hotel in the boozy aftermath of a charity boxing event at the PGA.
Ordered to pay a woman $3000 reparation for emotional harm and sentenced to do 175 hours community work, Green later lost an appeal against the convictions.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
