Leaky eyesore to $120m beach apartments

The first batch of luxury apartments in a $120 million development in the Christchurch beach suburb of Sumner has hit the market.

The two and three-bedroom apartments in the Anchorage are for sale off-the-plan, with prices expected to start at $1.5 million.

The development, which has been designed by award-winning architects Roger Walker and James Lunday, is one of five luxury apartment buildings planned for the suburb.

It is located on a large beachfront section on the corner of Marriner Street and The Esplanade, formerly the site of the quake-damaged Cave Rock Apartments.

According to the listing for the five-storey Anchorage development, buyers will have access to a suite of amenities, including “rooftop dining, heated pools, spa, sauna, and gym”.

Apartment sizes range from 96sqm to 351sqm – bigger than many houses in the area.

Stage two of the overall development will offer two and three-bedroom apartments in four buildings named Latitude, Spinnaker, Driftwood and Oasis.

Anchorage is due for completion mid-next year, with construction on the Latitude, Spinnaker, Driftwood and Oasis set to be finished in 2026.

The properties are being marketed by Kelleher Real Estate. Agent Jeremy Kelleher said they were standouts in the market, and were unusual for Christchurch, as they were north-facing and on the beach.

Lunday, who had moved to Christchurch to take up a role as general manager of the city’s rebuild programme following the earthquakes, has been heavily involved in the regeneration of Sumner and New Brighton.

He said the design team for the development was given a budget to do “something quite special”, and noted that each of the five buildings would offer something different.

One of the most interesting aspects of the development, he said, was the penthouse in the Spinnaker. It’s where the development’s co-owner, David and Patricia Moylan, would live.

“Basically, it’s a modest bach, with very high quality finishing, that sits on the roof of the apartment building,” said Lunday. “It takes up less than half of the actual roof space, so [the other] half of the roof is garden. It’s not the typical penthouse that has a deck. It’s a green roof.”

The site itself has an interesting history. It was once the home of the troubled Cave Rock Apartments, a 1990s development that attracted the ire of neighbours and was subsequently found to be leaky.

The building was damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes and was demolished soon after, leaving the site vacant for a number of years. At one point the site was split into five plots, one of which was bought by the Moylans, who were looking to build their dream home.

The couple then teamed up with developer Shane Kennedy, who owned the remaining sites at 12 Esplanade and agreed to build the current luxury development.

It will join a small, but growing number of trophy apartments in the city.

Bayleys agent Adam Heazlewood told OneRoof that the price per square metre of high-end apartments in Christchurch just kept growing. He recently sold an apartment in the Oxford Apartments redevelopment for around $4m.

He is currently marketing a three-bedroom apartment with 360-degree views and a price tag of $2.65m-plus and told OneRoof that he was in discussions with the developer of another project that’s about to come to market.

By Diana Clement, OneRoof