A reasonable figure for the sale of
Carisbrook is proving difficult to pin down, but a reported
estimate of $4 million from a property valuer has been
dismissed as too low.
It emerged this week the stadium will be sold to the Dunedin
City Council in the next few weeks for $7 million, and while
he was unwilling to confirm the figure, council finance and
corporate support general manager Athol Stephens said
yesterday the money would have to be borrowed.
The cost of buying Carisbrook is not included in the $198
million the council has promised the new stadium will cost.
But the local authority may be able to make the money back
when it sells the land, Mr Stephens said, depending on what
option is chosen for its use.
Property developers spoken to yesterday were unwilling to go
on the record with a price.
However, the general reaction to a figure of $4 million,
reported as a ballpark figure for the stadium by an un-named
property developer, was too low, with those contacted saying it
would be a very good buy at that price.
Mr Stephens also questioned the figures, and said at such a
price "we'd take it today".
Asked about the possibilities of money being made from the
sale of Carisbrook, he said no research had been done so far
on the issue.
Various ideas had been floated, including using it, instead
of Bathgate Park, for playing fields, and using Bathgate Park
for development.
Carisbrook, though, was already zoned industrial, was flat,
had good services and good access.
"Above all, it's freehold.
"If no other purposes were intended for it, it should be
reasonably sellable."
There could be a surplus from a sale, above what had been
paid, although it could take time to realise, depending on
the option.
Mr Stephens said the original deal for Carisbrook was that
all the rugby union's debts would be repaid from the proceeds
of the sale of the land, after it was sold to the council for
a nominal sum.
Not only would the rugby union's and the council's debt be
repaid, there was to have been be $5 million left over.
That figure was based on a Carisbrook Stadium Trust estimate
of the land being bought for a nominal sum, and sold for $11
million, something council staff questioned at the time, he
said.
"We always wondered if it would be possible to get $5 million
[profit]."
That would have reduced the cost of the land at the new
stadium, he said, but that was now apparently not the case.
The Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) last year owed $2
million to the city council and $4 million to the Bank of New
Zealand.
An Official Information Act request by the Otago Daily Times
last year resulted in the council confirming the ORFU's $2
million loan to the council had been extended to June 30 this
year.
Quotable Value New Zealand did its last valuation of Dunedin
properties, used by the council to set rates, in 2007, and
those valuations came into effect for ratepayers in the
middle of last year.
For Carisbrook, the capital value for the stadium was $16.2
million, but the land value was only $2.7 million.
That means the cost of the buildings on the land was
estimated at $13.5 million, but they have at best limited use
for anything other than a stadium, and ratings valuations do
not necessarily reflect market prices.
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