Lakeview, on an upper terrace above downtown, along from Skyline’s gondola base building, has been one of the resort’s longest-running development dramas — it has been on the council table for about 15 years.
The 10.4-ha public-owned site was the Lakeview Holiday Park. It’s home to dated 165 council-owned cabins, council-records storage sheds, a campground, ablution blocks, a toy library, other buildings and bare land.
But it is in a prime location, skirting the base of the wooded Ben Lomond scenic reserve and overlooking downtown and Lake Wakatipu.
The Queenstown Lakes District Council has a masterplan for the area, which became part of an extended downtown zone under plan change 50.
Six hectares of the land will remain as community land: parks, reserves, roads, camping, etc, but 4.4ha of it will be developed into buildings and facilities in partnership with private companies.
Ngai Tahu Tourism is leasing some of the land to develop and operate a ‘‘high-quality, premium hot pool and day spa facility’’.
Now three companies have been tapped to fight it out to be QLDC’s development partner for the rest.
• Melbourne-based Ninety Four Feet and consortium partners, which include award-winning New Zealand urban designers, architects and builders.
• MGL, a consortium comprising alternative asset manager HRL Morrison & Co, family office investor Tailorspace, private wealth partnership LJ Partnership, and Southbase Construction. The consortium has appointed Warren and Mahoney as urban designers and lead architects.
• Malaysian-based MRCB International. Christchurch-based Taylors is MRCB’s development project management and consulting business partner.
The council has requested formal design proposals and commercial offers from all three. The deadline is 12 weeks. They will be evaluated against the council’s proposal for the site.
The council expects to complete negotiations and execute a development agreement with that developer early in 2019.
Under the previous council chief executive and mayor, Adam Feeley and Vanessa van Uden respectively, it was proposed to build a $60 million-plus convention centre on the site, potentially funded in part by a casino, but it was put on hold due to a huge funding shortfall.
