Infinity drops $100m Wanaka hotel project

Wanaka property player Infinity Ltd has pulled out of developing a $100 million luxury lakefront hotel, saying it wants to concentrate on its core business of developing residential subdivisions.

Infinity has put 13,764sq m of prime real estate property on Lakeside Drive - tagged for a five-star 182 room apartment and luxury hotel complex - up for international tender.

Infinity general manager Marc Bretherton said the decision to sell was influenced by the uncertain times financial markets were experiencing.

"Now is not the time for Infinity to be branching into new territories [such as building hotels]. We want to focus on our core business, which is developing master-planned residential communities," he said.

The tender of the Marina Terrace Hotel land is the second marquee development put on the market by Infinity in the past two months.

In October, multimillionaire TradeMe founder and Internet entrepreneur Sam Morgan paid $25 million, plus GST, to buy Hillend Station.

Infinity spent nine years advancing Hillend's case in Environment Court to obtain resource consent to develop the upmarket property, overlooking Lake Wanaka.

The Marina Terrace Hotel project also spent five years - including time spent in the Environment Court - obtaining resource consent for the 77 apartments and hotel.

Despite the lengthy process and costly efforts required to gain consents for both developments, "there comes a time when properties experience an uplift in value," Mr Bretherton said.

This coincided with the granting of consents, but he conceded the holding costs for such properties were "not insignificant".

The company wanted to move away from developing land designated "outstanding natural landscape" in the Queenstown lakes area.

The Marina Terrace Hotel site is one of the few "fully consented" properties set up for hotel and multilevel apartment living and with a premium lake frontage in the South Island.

Mr Bretherton told the Otago Daily Times that "none of Infinity's projects are under pressure".

However, "now is not the time to become hotel developers", he said.

Infinity would instead concentrate on its residential subdivision projects around the lower to mid South Island.

These include Pegasus Town and Huntersglen, on the Ashley River, both near Christchurch; Ravenswood, near Woodend, in North Canterbury; Wanaka's Peninsula Bay; and Riverside Park, in Albert Town.

The future of Infinity's proposed $150 million monorail development - the Fiordland link between Lake Wakatipu and Te Anau - appeared secure, despite being a non-core business.

"The Fiordland Link is a unique project that will be fantastic for tourism, and while it sits outside our core business, [Infinity] continue to develop the project in a low-key [way] and have been in consultation with several entities, [including the Department of Conservation]."

The Marina Terrace Hotel site had a registered valuation of $14 million and Infinity "anticipated" tenders would reach that figure, Mr Bretherton said.