The 10-storey glass and steel office block at 61 Molesworth St in Wellington could soon be a symbol of rebirth from the Kaikoura earthquake.
The building was demolished in 2017 after the quake forced it to be evacuated and abandoned. Resource consent for a new carpark building was applied for in August last year.
The man behind that plan is Eyal Aharoni, a former Israeli army major who has built the Primeproperty group over 30 years since his arrival in New Zealand in 1988 to complete a masters degree in geophysics at Victoria University.
He is the head and sole owner of the group, which has a substantial mixed property portfolio. Its website says the group owns 37 commercial buildings, five hotels., 180,000 sqm of industrial land, 1800 carpark bays and several greenfield residential sites.
The latest addition is the former the former Telecom headquarters building in Manners St in the Wellington CBD which the group bought in July from its Australian owners for an undisclosed sum. The 14-story building is largely vacant and ready for redevelopment.
The group’s investments are mainly in the Wellington CBD and also in Hamilton, Tauranga, and the Coromandel Peninsula.
It plans to develop 40ha of land overlooking the Wellington Harbour as part of a residential project featuring dozens of homes. The development, known as Point 360, will release its second stage of about 60 titles this year.
Primeproperty also recently bought Wellington’s Amora Hotel on Wakefield St for an undisclosed sum. The 192-room hotel was closed in May 2017 to undergo refurbishment and Aharoni plans to undertake a multimillion-dollar refurbishment before reopening it this year.
Aharoni’s wife, Antoinette, is the daughter of Raffaele Muollo, who owns the Raffaele Hotel in Oriental Bay and the couple have two children.
Both Antoinette and his son, Guy, one of two children from an earlier marriage, work in the family business. Antoinette is chief executive of the hotels arm, Prime Hotels while Guy is group sales and operations manager. Photo: Stuff
2018: $60 million