KEY POINTS:
The first tenants moved into the Railway Campus apartments yesterday signalling victory for owners facing financial ruin.
Apartment owners lost a combined $4 million in revenue last year as the building sat empty, waiting for maintenance work to begin.
The historic railway station was turned into apartments as part of a complex developed by Jim Speedy in 1999. It retained features of the original station, including its marble columns, terrazzo floors and vaulted ceilings.
Until last November, the block was managed through holding company University Accommodation. Most of the 223 apartments were let to students.
But after finding problems with the building, including leaks, the university ordered it evacuated in 2007.
Owners were told maintenance would be completed by February 2009 but because of delays in consent and planning processes they are still waiting.
Desperate owners were last year selling studio apartments on Trade Me for as little as $8000 after offering them at auction with no reserve.
A new committee was appointed on December 3 with Mike Collins, who owns six apartments, as head of the body corporate.
Mr Collins had been urging the former committee to allow some of the apartments to be rented since he joined the group in 2007.
He said it was "hellishly difficult" to change committee members' minds and it was a victory for owners to start renting 51 of the apartments within a month of him being appointed.
Last year, Mr Collins put the home his family built at Te Atatu Peninsula on the market because his six apartments were empty.
He is hoping to rent out four of his six apartments this year, which may enable him to retain his family home.
One hundred apartments in the heritage half of the building are due to be rented towards the end of next month once routine roof maintenance has been completed.
The North Wing which holds a further 51 apartments would be re-clad first and should be released for rent in May, Mr Collins said.
The apartments in the South Wing are due to be re-clad in September.
Murray Fitzsimmons, general manager of City Apartments Ltd, one of the companies filling the Railway Campus apartments, said he had a list of people wanting to move in.
Some were previous tenants who said they wished they had never moved out.
Rents are competitive with other Auckland City apartments at around $240 for a studio, $330-$350 for a two-bedroom and $420-$470 for a three-bedroom apartment.
