KEY POINTS:
Developer Peter Cooper is absolutely committed to building a 21-storey hotel towering four times over the allowable height limit at the historic Britomart precinct.
Mr Cooper used Friday's fifth anniversary of the opening of the Britomart transport centre to plug New Zealand's first five-plus star hotel on the Quay St site of the Seafarers Building.
Negotiations, he said, were advanced for the Four Seasons Hotel Group to run the 175-room luxury hotel, which will cost $120 million to $150 million and could be completed for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
But the founder and executive chairman of Cooper and Company, which is spending $1 billion on Britomart and $450 million on a real estate project in the Bay of Islands, knows difficulties will lie ahead for the hotel.
Auckland City's urban design champion Ludo Campbell-Reid said the hotel was "alien" in scale to the heritage needs of the precinct.
Former Institute of Architects urban issues group chairman Graeme Scott said it was agreed Britomart would be a low-rise heritage precinct and to have it attacked by a developer was a hopeless way to run a city.
The council's urban design panel has also knocked the proposal.
Mr Cooper acknowledged his reputation was on the line: "You don't go into the fray on an issue like this unless you absolutely believe in it, and I really believe in it."
The hotel would be incorporated into the neighbouring Quay and Altrams historic buildings at street level. A new tower would rise in a slender sculptural form in front of a permitted 13-storey building at the east end of Britomart with "lantern-like" upper levels.
Mr Cooper said the company always believed the Seafarers site was the perfect location for a hotel. It would be in keeping with the original height limit along Quay St, integrate Britomart into the cityscape and had to be seen in the context of the 13-storey building behind it, he said.
"We are trading breaching the height limits on that one site in order to get a hotel and building of this calibre. That is really the issue - whether the city wants it, and if that is a good trade or a bad trade."
He said the economics of the hotel were poor and the project was not driven by commercial opportunism. If the hotel did not go ahead, the company could build a commercial building on the site. The most economic option was to do nothing and leave the Seafarers building as it was, he said.
Auckland City Mayor John Banks marked the anniversary to praise Mr Cooper's work at Britomart, but did not add his support to the hotel. He is waiting for public feedback on the private plan change, which would allow Cooper and Company to build up to 79m on Quay St and 105m on Tyler St.
Mr Banks, who said he was a "roads, roads, roads" champion at the time he opened Britomart in 2003, gave his backing to improved public transport, including electrification of the Auckland rail network. He believed a central-city rail loop would be built before a second harbour crossing.
