A large development site in a prime central Queenstown location is on the market.
The high profile site, owned by long-time Queenstowner Lew Gdanitz and a Christchurch business partner, is on the intersection of Stanley and Shotover Streets and Gorge Road, beside the main council offices.
The pair has commissioned concept plans for $50 million, 202-room hotel and retail development, designed by local architect John Blair, though they’ve yet to obtain resource consent.
The sale comes as Mountain Scene said large tourist groups are snubbing New Zealand because of a Queenstown hotel shortage.
For sale by tender is either the 2990 square metre block or five individual lots. Those lots, aggregated some time ago, comprise three tenanted commercial buildings, a vacant lot leased for car parking and a two-level unit-titled block of 10 apartments.
Most leases are on monthly terms only, providing flexibility for redevelopment.
Local Colliers International managing director Alastair Wood, who is marketing the property with his colleague, tourism broker Barry Robertson, said “For land to be made available on such a high-profile corner at the gateway to the Queenstown CBD is very rare.
“This is a unique opportunity being offered to the market at a time when we have seen unprecedented growth in our tourism market.”
Robertson adds: “There’s an undeniable appetite for downtown commercial and hotel development sites. Properties like these are a sought after commodity.”
The land sits within the Queenstown council’s high density residential zone.
Part of the site has been earmarked for a traffic bypass between Melbourne, Henry and Man Sts, to relieve CBD congestion.
Only last September, Gdanitz, who has started building a $10m, 54-room boutique hotel on nearby Henry St, and his partner announced plans for a 202-room four-and-a-half star hotel on the site.
It would be accompanied by about 1800 square metres of ground floor retail and 52 underground car parks.
The pair had earlier proposed a 110-room hotel.
The tender deadline for the site is March 22.
