Up to 38 one-bedroom apartments are planned in four stages, according to project manager Bill Lowe, who was the original developer and placed his company, Gardens View Ltd, in voluntary liquidation in early May last year, after completing and selling 15 apartments.
At the time, Gardens View owed an unspecified amount to a finance company, a local construction business and other creditors.
The latter remain unlikely to see any of more than $176,000 owed to them, liquidators reconfirmed last week.
Attempts to contact the Australian-company owner prompted referrals to Mr Lowe.
He confirmed, when contacted, that he was the project manager and reiterated what he said in May last year, that he was neither a director nor shareholder of the purchasing Australian company, and was "working for wages" as project manager for the next stage of development.
"Call it a labour of love," he said.
He said since the liquidation a year ago he had not been in talks with either the liquidators, or the construction company involved.
Liquidators have said there may be a dispute over the building contracts to resolve.
Mr Lowe confirmed new builders had been hired for the next stage, and work was due to begin on the 12 apartments before the end of the month.
Last year, a month before the Gardens View liquidation, an Australian-owned company bought the remainder of the planned development for an unspecified sum, with intentions of completing it.
Fifteen of the proposed 42 Santa Sabina units, on the site of a former Catholic Dominican convent, were built and have been sold, and are not part of the liquidation.
The remaining land, convent and proposal to build the balance of 27 units was sold to an Australian-owned New Zealand company; but leaving money owed to creditors by the original developer, Mr Lowe.
Liquidator Ian Nellies, of Dunedin-based Insolvency Management Ltd, posted his second six-monthly report last week, saying investigations into the liquidation were continuing.
When contacted, Mr Nellies said "most" of the $1.76 million owed to the secured creditor had been paid since the liquidation, but, nothing had changed from six months ago and the nine unsecured creditors owed $176,447 were still unlikely to be paid.
"We are still investigating whether or not there has been any wrongdoing. I remain open-minded and have not found anything ... there is screeds of documentation to still go through," Mr Nellies said.
He said there remained an argument of whether some of the construction was undertaken under a "fixed-price contract".
He was hopeful the liquidation could be completed by the end of the year.
Recent advertisements for staff stated the new Sabina development owner is Brabbam Investments Ltd, which is 100%-owned by Brabbam Trustees Ltd, Companies Office records show.
Brabbam Trustees Ltd's sole director and shareholder is Brendan Vote, of South Launceston, Tasmania.
In recent advertisements, an "introductory price" was offered for the first 12 one-bedroom the Sabina Apartments in North Rd, saying the "brand new, fully self-contained apartments were expected to be completed by February/March 2011", and could be secured with a 10% deposit to a solicitor's trust account until completion.
The price for each of the 12 apartments, for "stage 1 only", was $268,000 to $289,000, which equated to a retail sale price of between $3.21 million and $3.46 million.
The 42-apartment Santa Sabina complex development attracted 70 opposing resource consent submissions and there was a later unsuccessful Environment Court challenge against the original $12 million 54-unit proposal. Mr Lowe began building the 42-apartment complex in March 2007.
He had since sold all 15 four-bedroom units of stage one, some reportedly for $500,000.
The on-sold development included the resource consent to construct stage two, consisting of land, 25 units and a further two units within the Santa Sabina convent building.
The 1929 Santa Sabina building housed Dominican nuns, who have had a presence on the site since 1895.
