KEY POINTS:
World economic turmoil has ended plans for a 21-storey hotel at the historic Britomart precinct in Auckland.
Developer Cooper and Company said it was now impractical to design, finance and build New Zealand's first five-star-plus hotel in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Negotiations were advanced for the Four Seasons Hotel Group to run the 175-room hotel on the Quay St site of the Seafarers Building.
Cooper and Company's official line is that it is "re-evaluating the proposed building", but a senior city source told the Weekend Herald that the company was feeling the effects of the credit crunch and the rapidly slowing property sector.
"There is not a bank in the world that would fund that [hotel] development," the source said.
Cooper and Company chief executive Matthew Cockram said economic conditions were "pretty serious" and the company was focused on projects already in progress.
It had started building a $240 million building at the eastern end of Britomart.
Ernst & Young has leased much of the East Building and has bought naming rights.
Westpac is setting up its new $140 million national headquarters in Britomart, at the refitted historic building, Charter House.
The bank has also leased space in the new East Building.
Mr Cockram said plans to start work this year on a low-rise building on the former Oriental Markets site in front of the Scene One, Two and Three apartment blocks had been deferred until next year. There was no funding for the project at present, he said.
The company has advised Auckland City Council it is re-evaluating the hotel building, and is going back to the drawing board with a private plan change.
Plans for the hotel to go four times over the allowable height limit at Britomart met huge public opposition.
The council's urban design champion, Ludo-Campbell Reid, said the hotel was alien in scale to the heritage needs of the precinct.
The Historic Places Trust and the council's urban design panel both opposed the proposal.
The Weekend Herald has learned that the council was on the verge of formally opposing the private plan change when the company pulled the plug.
