Osmax Ltd has been granted resource consent by the Dunedin City Council to add an additional level, four ground-floor retail spaces and eight first- and second-floor residential apartments to a 631sq m property in Filleul St, behind the Meridian Mall.
Director Sam Cadden said the building at 50 Filleul St was at least three-quarters empty and had started to look rundown when Osmax bought it.
The company was actively looking for properties to develop and he noticed the building was often advertised to rent, seemingly with no luck.
It was bought with the intention of adding value to it, Mr Cadden said.
‘‘The motivation was to actually get a building that was dead basically, or vacant and actually breathe a new life into it.’’
The building’s existing roof would be lifted by about 1.5m, creating an additional floor and allowing the four one-bedroom and four two-bedroom apartments to fit within the small footprint.
The architects, Stufkens + Chambers, had done an exceptional job at making it all work, he said.
‘‘On the face of it, to get eight apartments in this building looked impossible until we decided to lift the roof.
‘‘It needs to be those numbers to make it financially viable as well, because construction costs in Dunedin, whilst the market’s flat, construction costs are still high.’’
They would all be for rent and were targeted towards more mature, professional tenants, rather than the student market.
‘‘They’re building a new hospital at the other end of the mall from us, so we’re just trying to get ahead of the bell curve and the demand that they’ll generate.’’
Tenants for three of the four ground-floor retail spaces had already been found.
One was a pilates organisation, another Logic Group — of which Mr Cadden is also a director — and the third was after-school learning centre Kumon, a pre-existing tenant.
Each of the spaces were designed in conjunction with the tenants.
A fourth was still being sought.
The company was targeting an ‘‘aggressive timeframe’’ of having the eight apartments built within six months of building consent approval, Mr Cadden said.
They were also looking to hand over the ground-floor tenancies early next month.
