Auckland Uni buys Lion site, sold to Abu Dhabi-led group for $162m in 2007
"Makes sense. That area needs some sprucing up. Could be used for medical school expansion, proximity to hospital is good."
Featured commentBUSINESSDESK: University of Auckland has conditionally agreed to buy a 5.2ha property in Newmarket that Lion Breweries bought back from property developers two years ago, saying the site could meet its expansion needs for years.
The university estimates that to cope with its growth it needs to build or acquire additional space at a rate of 6000sq m a year "for the foreseeable future".
The institution plans to consolidate its academic activities at its city and Grafton campuses, though these would only cope with 10-15 years of growth, vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon says.
No price was given in the lease and a spokeswoman for the university was not immediately available.
The site is owned by Great Northern Developments, which had planned a multi-use construction project including apartments. Great Northern was a venture between AMP Capital NZ and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
They had agreed to pay Lion $162 million for the site in 2007 before the global financial crisis dried up credit and had made an initial deposit of $50 million, NBR reported at the time. AMP Capital subsequently wrote off its share of the project.
"The Newmarket site provides a significant opportunity for the University to manage its growth requirements over the next 50 years," Mr McCutcheon says.
If the sale is finalised, the university plans to use the site for a mixed-use campus, with teaching and research facilities, student accommodation and business development.
The deal would also herald the closure of the Tamaki Campus "in part or whole in order to rationalise its campus holdings both to help pay for, and maximise the benefits, of the new site", Mr McCutcheon says.
The university is doing due diligence on the site and a decision on whether to go unconditional will be made at the April 2013 meeting of the university's council meeting.
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Comments and questions17
auckland uni gets it own pub
what can go wrong???
good place to put the Engineering department.
They better sell there GI and Epsom properties they would fetch a mint.
With the grammatical error you have shown might I suggest you redo Year 5?
Makes sense. That area needs some sprucing up. Could be used for medical school expansion, proximity to hospital is good.
Always puzzled me why Khyber Pass never advanced and NewMarket went ahead. Particularly those sites at top of Khyber Pass and Symonds street seem like the prime locations in Auckland (highest points) and never went ahead.
Rather than go to lectures start brewing boys.
That's fairly expensive real estate to buy just for classrooms & research...I would've thought improving their facilities at Tamaki would be the better option. Tamaki would work if they committed to putting significant numbers and popular papers out there. Seems a waste of space that could be better utilised in the Newmarket area.
Looks like a classic vanity/legacy project to me.
What's the betting it'll be called the "McCutcheon Campus" if it goes ahead?
You have hit the nail right on the head.
Surely this stuffs Loopy Len's master plan?
Valuable central land to be the 'Hood-ed/McCutcheon Memorial Place' and serve no other purpose that to finally choke the traffic in Newmarket to death....Or will they all be (mythical) walkers and cyclists...as in the loopy ones fantasies? Dream on.
Get students out of the CBD was the call a decade ago. Newmarket is where the CBD has to go.
This is another brainless move by this apology for a city....driven by ego and the vested/festered interest of bailing out mates, methinks
You are aware that neither the govt nor the council has any ownership in the University of Auckland?
Why would students drive there? The site is on the busiest bus route in the city, has direct access from the brand new Grafton railway station at the western end, and is a 2 minute walk from Newmarket station at the eastern end. Only a fool would choose to drive there.
Uncharacteristically good foresight by Aucklanders.
Now do they have the foresight to shift the whole campus and sell the existing one just off the Auckland CBD to be turned into hotels and apartment blocks - wishful thinking I suspect - as only one good decision a century is likely north of the Bombay Hills.
You and Bertie understand the big picture. And to suggest that council and government are powerless in this fiasco is naive in extremis. You can just imagine Steven Joyce saying: "Oh, we shouldn't get involved.....there is such a good buslane there.....how perfect." He has greater powers (not to mention ambitions) than that people.
I can see the logic for the univerisity to consolidate its Epsom and Tamaki activities into the city centre. Great location too for international students: accommodation and shopping.
How much they pay for it?
So - what does this mean to Newmarket? Will all those designer shops be over-run by fish and chip shops, takeaways and pubs? Sounds like great news for traders, but perhaps not so good for existing residents?