KEY POINTS:
Brewing and liquor giant Lion Nathan NZ is planning to shift staff from its 5ha Newmarket site to a larger new $250 million South Auckland headquarters.
Liz Read, Lion's corporate affairs director in Auckland, said yesterday the company had struck a deal to buy a 16.7ha greenfields site on Ormiston Rd in East Tamaki.
The $250 million project cost comprised the land purchase, new equipment costs and the price of construction, she said.
Staff would come from three sites to a new integrated base, moving from Khyber Pass Rd, a contract bottling company in Springs Rd at East Tamaki and an off-site warehouse also in East Tamaki.
Some workers would be closer to home after the move but others would have further to travel.
The site at 55 Ormiston Rd is now used for grazing cattle.
At the end of July, Australian insurance firm AMP announced it had bought Lion's 5ha site on the corner of Khyber Pass and Park Rds for $162 million. AMP will pay Lion $50 million at the end of the financial year and the rest when Lion leaves in 2011.
AMP Capital Investors is said to be planning to develop a high-density apartment, shopping and retirement precinct on the land in a project to be headed by Marcus Jacobson.
Lion entered into an agreement to sell and has been looking at options for an alternative site for months.
Since the July announcement, Lion has consulted extensively with property experts. Areas considered are understood to have included land near Auckland Airport, at Pokeno and in Takanini.
Liz Read said Lion would build an integrated manufacturing and warehousing plant that would allow it to align its production and supply chain to the needs of the marketplace.
It would create a better place for workers and new opportunities to improve environmental performance.
The new facility is expected to be finished in about four years,
Lion's corporate headquarters and its staff will remain in Newmarket, Liz Read said. There were mixed feelings about the shift because Lion had been on the site for about 130 years.
"At one stage, there were 18 breweries in Khyber Pass Rd. There's a lot of history here and we'll be taking what we can with us."
THE SHIFT
* Lion Nathan will leave the area in about 2011.
* The firm has operated there for more than a century.
* Its 5ha site spans Khyber Pass and Park Rd.
* AMP has a $1 billion project planned there.
* Its redevelopment is one of the country's largest.
* Shops, apartments and retirement community are likely.
