KEY POINTS:
John Dalzell is sometimes compared to Hollywood film stars.
A while back, the Auckland property developer was dubbed a Keanu Reeves lookalike. The comparison appeared in a profile in an agency industry magazine.
Then, Dalzell confessed somewhat meekly from his Westhaven office this month, it got worse: a fellow airline traveller accosted him, convinced he was Kevin Costner.
Dalzell just shrugs and smiles at the comparisons. He is in charge of Auckland's waterfront transformation; the conversion of the "brownfields" Tank Farm from an industrial and storage zone into a mixed-use marine industry, recreational park, entertainment, apartment, shop and office hub.
Giant, white storage tanks are gradually being dismantled and sea walls restored, as the land is cleared. Industrial tenants have begun to vacate the site and infrastructure works have started to enable the city's vision for the area to be fulfilled.
The Wynyard Quarter is a 41ha block and within that, Sea+City Projects' area is 29ha. More than 7000 people are expected to live there as a new era dawns on the waterfront.
There are plans for a 4.25ha park at the tip of the finger wharf, jutting into the harbour. The park would be linked all the way to Victoria Park via a 40m-wide promenade.
Dalzell, who has spent his property career in the private sector, now has a very public role as the face of that change _ and three public masters, including Auckland Regional Council.
But Auckland Regional Holdings is the major landowner, investor and co-sponsor of the Sea+City Projects. The business Dalzell runs provides management services to Auckland Regional Holdings and another public stakeholder, Auckland City Council.
The son of a builder, Dalzell was born in Invercargill where his father was working on contract at the time. He grew up in Epsom and spent long summer holidays at his grandfather's landholding at Taipa in the Far North.
As a student, Dalzell worked as a labourer on building sites and remembers the monotonous task of de-nailing wood, a practice he notes is now back in vogue in an eco-friendly recycling revival. Twenty years ago, it was a more common practice on most building sites.
When he graduated from Auckland University in 1985, he was awarded the Institute of Valuers' prize and then worked at Stace Bennett, an Auckland valuation business, moving to agency and consultancy Bayleys in the late 1980s when the property market was in financial crisis.
Kerry Coleman, formerly of the agency, said Dalzell had a good nose for the business.
"John joined us at Bayleys as a young registered valuer and was strongly analytic and was very instinctive in property," Coleman remembers.
Dalzell then became a senior manager in Ernst & Young's real estate consulting practice where he worked with David Keys and Graeme Horsley, men who have influenced many people's careers.
"John was more suited to the development and entrepreneurial clients than the valuation clients," Horsley recalls. "He was never slow in being able to communicate with people. He's done quite well for himself. He's had some very interesting roles over the years, some better than others. You must learn from those things, it's all part of life's experience."
Horsley is referring to Dalzell's career particularly after leaving Ernst and Young when he worked for the once high-flying but later bankrupt Asian Auckland investor Jihong Lu and his Savoy business which hatched a scheme for highrise towers on the Britomart.
But Dalzell said his time at Savoy was focused on developing the 110-unit Hyatt Residences, the large apartment block which now stands alongside the Hyatt Hotel on the Princes St/Waterloo Quadrant corner.
"Over eight years, I did everything, initially as Savoy's chief executive of property for nine months, then working for Hudson which took over the project but for the last 2 years representing South Canterbury Finance's interests in the Hyatt properties," Dalzell remembers.
When Savoy sold its interests to Australia's Hudson Group, Dalzell carried on with the residences' apartments. If the test of a project's worth is whether the boss will live in the development, then Dalzell's ownership of the two-level 170sq m penthouse for some years has proved the tower's success. Hyatt Residences also won an Institute of Architects award in 2003.
As for working with Lu, Dalzell reckons experience with highly entrepreneurial developers has given him skills needed on the Tank Farm job.
"I need to be able to find out if someone is not giving me the real oil. I've seen a few tricks. I need to know who I can trust."
Dalzell has also been property manager for the Anglican Trust Board and established his own property consultancy, Ursus. At the consultancy, projects included Kawau Bay waterfront housing development Whisper Cove.
Dalzell's office is now at the southern end of Wynyard Quarter on Westhaven Drive.
His walls are lined with large posters showing architects' perspectives of plans for the area, how the mix of activities will work, building height and form, indicative site plans, street sections, views and perspectives.
This week, those plans were being hotly debated as Sanford cried out against the changes. The Auckland Fish Market would be driven away from the area by a lack of carparking space and by apartments right up against fish processing plants, it said.
Public hearings have been thrashing out the plan to rezone the Tank Farm from an industrial wasteland into a sophisticated waterfront lifestyle community. The Tank Farm was voted by Herald readers as the fourth most ugly structure in Auckland but Dalzell reckons he can contribute to its transition into an aesthetically more appealing neighbourhood.
Patrick Clifford, the Auckland architect behind the Tank Farm's urban design concepts, agrees and says Dalzell is the right man for the job.
"The constituency for an undertaking of this type is obviously extremely diverse. John has the ability and the desire to engage with all these interests and genuinely listen to them, work with them to make a better outcome.
"I think he has a clear understanding of the longevity of this project which is definitely a marathon, not a sprint! And perhaps _ in my view most importantly _ John understands that this is city and place-making, not property development," said Clifford.
John Glenn Dalzell
* Project director Sea+City Projects.
* Age: 43.
* Lives: Hyatt Residences, Princes Street.
* Office: Pier 21 Building, 11 Westhaven Drive, Auckland.
* Family: Wife Alex, sons Tudor, 8 months, Matthew, 17 and Andrew, 12.
* Qualifications: Registered valuer.
* Education: Epsom Normal, Epsom Intermediate, St Kentigern College.
* University of Auckland: Bachelor property administration.
