Cruisy Mt Maunganui vacant corner site

The vacant corner land (lower foreground) is close to the harbour area where visiting cruise ships berth. Photo / Supplied

Two adjoining bare sections located directly across the road from the mooring and passenger boarding and disembarkation facilities for cruise ships visiting the port of Tauranga have been placed on the market for sale.

The two freehold sites on the corner of Rata St and Nikau Crescent in Mount Maunganui are zoned Commercial 8C under the Tauranga Council district plan – allowing for a construction height of up to 12m.

Combined, the two flat sites encompass 1867sq m of land and are being sold as one offering.

The Rata St and Nikau Crescent corner block - zoned City Centre under Tauranga City Council's district plan - is surrounded by mixed-used properties housing port-related commercial offices like customs brokers, retail outlets and apartments.

The land offers an 'excellent blank canvas' development opportunity, says Lloyd Davidson of Bayleys Tauranga who, with colleague Sarah Schouwenburg, is marketing 10 Rata St and 37 Nikau Crescent for sale by auction at 1pm on Wednesday May 1 through Bayleys Tauranga.

"The site is positioned directly across from the Port of Tauranga where core activities include the movement of containers, produce and people from Mount Maunganui's commercial and high street retail precincts," Davidson says.

"Design configurations for any new building on the Rata St and Nikau Crescent site could easily factor in retail units at street level, with commercial floors above. Or a boutique hotel to accommodate passengers either embarking onto cruises calling in at Tauranga or disembarking from their journeys at the port."

He points out that the Port of Tauranga hosted 114 cruise ships over the 2018/19 season running from October to April, with the same number of liner berths forecast for the 2019/20 season.

"With tens of thousands of cruise passengers now using the Pilot Bay berthage over what is effectively a seven-month season, the Mount Maunganui retail environment and wider Bay of Plenty tourism sector has benefitted from this growth," Davidson says.

"Such activity in this sector suggests an obvious commercial and economic potential for this Rata St and Nikau Crescent site, and the format of its most likely future tenancies."

Schouwenburg says the site previously housed the head office for what became the Owens Group. At that time, it was the main base for the original stevedore business that managed the beginnings of the New Zealand log and timber trade to Japan.

Sales data for large blocks of bare land purchased in Mount Maunganui over the past nine months shows that 2118sq m of land at nearby 2 Rata St sold for a per square metre price of $2630; while 800sq m of land nearby at 33 Totara Street sold for a per square metre price of $3870.