Waterfront and mixed-used specialist developer Willis Bond is putting the finishing touches on its Daldy apartment project this week, the first stage of its $270 million 30 Madden development in Auckland's Wynyard Quarter.
It's the third apartment and townhouse complex for the developer and follows its 113-unit Wynyard Central and 51-apartment 32 Halsey addresses, at a combined development cost of $330 million.
That price tag of $600 million, however, will come in closer to $1 billion when measured in 'economic impact' terms, said managing director Mark McGuinness.
This is a big number when considering 30 Madden is less than the halfway point of a blueprint to construct more than 600 upmarket apartment and townhouse units in the waterfront precinct, following Willis Bond's selection to develop the 3.5 hectare site by Waterfront Auckland in 2014.
McGuinness said the new Daldy apartment owners could get their keys as early as mid-January, once the development receives the Auckland Council compliance tick of approval.
"And we're happy about that after losing, maybe a couple of weeks after the disrupted year we've had." But, like the rest of the property market, interest has been high in the precinct with the apartments generating reported sales of more than $20 million over the past three months.
$5 million townhouses
Prices range from the ‘high $600s’ for 1-bedroom apartments, and from $1 million to upwards of $5 million for the larger 3-bedroom apartments and the property's eight townhouses. Carparks are negotiated separately, McGuinness said, although it was a "zero sum game, so it really depended only on whether a car park was needed."
In addition to modern building features and a high Homestar rating of 7, the residence features a communal courtyard with more than 3,000 native and edible plants.
He acknowledged it had been something of a superhuman effort to get to this point, considering the challenges of the covid shutdowns and intermittent disruptions, as well as having almost 3,000 contractors working on the site over the construction cycle.
To adapt to the uncertainty of covid lockdowns, the firm rented a large warehouse in the event of logistics disruptions and broke up the worksite into four quadrants, allowing it to quarantine some parts without shutting the whole site down.
Work is also about to begin on the next 59-unit stage next door, of which 45 have already been reserved, and there are another two adjacent properties bringing another 300 units to market, over the next four-to-five years.
Catalina Bay
Hobsonville Point's newly rebranded ‘Catalina Bay’ is also keeping the developer busy. Willis Bond acquired the rights to develop the waterfront land in 2016, site of a former military base, with the first stage including the repurposing of seven existing air force buildings into mixed use developments.
This included a new home for the local farmers’ market and the redevelopment of the Sunderland Hangar into a Little Creatures brewery.
In Wellington, it is also the development manager for the new convention centre and it recently started construction on its $160 million Victoria Lane apartments development, in the city’s Cuba St heritage precinct.
Despite its 2.5-year timeframe, McGuinness notes it is already 90 percent sold, reflecting the incredible interest in developments near the waterfront in the capital.
