Developer can launch his dream complex at Tutukaka

A 104-unit upmarket accommodation complex aimed at tourists and divers is expected to open in Tutukaka in November 2006.
The Marina Club will include 46 motel units, 58 apartments, a swimming pool, sauna, spa, gym, 191 car parks, restaurant capable of seating 80 people, and a dive shop.
The development, which will occupy much of a gully behind the existing Schnappa Rock Cafe, gained resource consent in December, making it the best Christmas present developer Tony Anderson can remember.
Mr Anderson, of North Coast Properties, said he had been planning the project over the past five years since his friend who runs a Tutukaka dive shop complained about an accommodation shortage in the area.
"I just said it as a bit of a joke one weekend, `I'll build you a motel and your divers can stay there'. I had already designed it before I bought the property."
He said the hotel/motel operation would be "four-star type". Apartments could be bought to live in or to rent back to the management running the motel.
Mr Anderson said gaining resource consent meant the project had overcome the "biggest single obstacle by far".
Completing the building consent phase of the project was likely to take months, and he aimed to have the complex open at the end of November 2006.
Mr Anderson said he was reluctant to put a dollar figure on the project, saying it was likely to change over time, but said that building would cost at least $25 million.
He said prices ranged from $195,000 for some motel units, to about $800,000 for some apartments.
But one particular apartment was simply "priceless".
"There's one apartment which we haven't put a price on which will probably start at $2 million. It's right at the front, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a private lap pool, landscaped roof garden and any coffee machine you want."
He said the Marina Club site was sheltered and sunny and had good views.
"I know the area very very well," he said. "I think that what I've designed to put in there just suited the the place so well."
Mr Anderson was project architect at the Two Double Seven retail development in Newmarket, Auckland.
Consent conditions for Marina Club require the apartments and motel to be connected to the council's reticulated sewage system, to be built by the Oceans Resort Tutukaka complex.
North Coast Properties must pay the council about $325,000 in contributions for roading, reserves and stormwater services.