Rooftop drinks on town-centre hospitality menu

From page 1 will also incorporate four ground-floor restaurants and the conversion of top-level office space into a 680sqm brew bar.

Knight’s company Knight Crawford bought the building last year for $11 million, and plans to retain it after the redevelopment.

“I’m a long-term investor,” he told the Observer. He put the project’s end value at approximately $25 million.

In a further vote of confidence in the area, his company – which recently refitted commercial property at the front of the Bruce Mason Centre – is looking at other Hurstmere Rd opportunities.

Knight said the Takapuna Bay project’s rooftop bar will be established by the operators behind two of Auckland’s most high-profile bars.

It would feature generous decks facing the sea and others catching the late afternoon and evening sun. Escalators would carry patrons to the hospitality area. “You will get views of Rangitoto and the sun setting.”

One ground-level restaurant will occupy the Hurstmere Rd-Strand corner, and others have views back to Takapuna Beach.

Hoardings now up around the front and side of the building showed its allowed footprint, Knight said. By building out to the site’s edge, 570sqm more usable space would be available at ground level than in the existing configuration, which has a paved entrance patio.

The building’s lower level of basement car parks will be transformed into a hub for wellness and fitness tenants, including a boxing studio. It will open to the rear, facing the car park above the beach reserve.

Takapuna Bay won council planning consent in November. The building’s cladding was stripped recently, with structural work due to start soon.

Knight said the building was already 80 per cent tenanted. His builder hoped to finish the transformation by Christmas, meaning a

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Knight Crawford specialises in neighbourhood retail projects, adding value to existing buildings, and has a track record of other boutique developments in the city and on the North Shore. Knight runs the company with partner Shane Crawford, a New Zealander working in Hong Kong.

Aged 31, Knight has been in the develop- ment business for five or six years.

Brought up in Takapuna, the former Kristin School pupil is back living in the area and a recent first-time father. He said he identified the Takapuna Bay site around three years ago. “The road will be fantastic in time,” he said.

Locals had come to appreciate the extra pedestrian space created in a recent upgrade and new residents would increasingly access town-centre attractions on foot.

Main-street development... Two apartment blocks are planned for this site (in blue) on Hurstmere Rd

Apartment blocks approved for Takapuna strip

Latest big-building plan adds to projects spawned by council moves to increase density

A 153-apartment development in two buildings in the heart of Takapuna’s bar district, one of nine and the other of seven storeys, has been given resource consent.

Soho Quarter Limited’s proposal will include retail and commercial uses on the ground floor of the 396sqm site at 138 Hurstmere Rd, with apartments above.

The current occupants of 138 Hurstmere Rd include the Elephant Wrestler, Florrie McGreal’s and Hops & Claret bars, Prudential Pacific Investment Company, Soho Works office suites and the Anytime Fitness gym.

It is unclear when building will start, but Soho Quarter has asked for the consent to last 10 years “to provide for greater flexibility in respect to the staging” of the development.

One tenant told the Observer his business had a lease till 2027, but with a demolition clause allowing early termination.

The first building in the proposal, with a front onto Hurtsmere Rd, will be seven storeys, with commercial and retail spaces including food and beverage on the ground floor and 82 apartments over six levels above.

The second, to the rear, beyond a central courtyard, will also have commercial and retail on the ground flood and 71 apartments over eight levels above.

Between them, the two buildings will have 40 one-bedroom, 68 two-bedroom, 39 three-bedroom and six four-bedroom units.

A single-level basement will provide 96 car parks, 153 double-stacked bicycle spaces and service areas for all apartments and commercial tenancies.

Upper-level views from the buildings will take in Takapuna Beach, Lake Pupuke, Gulf Harbour and the Auckland CBD.

Significant trees on or near the site, including a holm oak and large pohutukawa, would not be affected by the new buildings, arborists for the applicant said.

A key aim of the design “is to improve public connectivity between the proposed central courtyard and the existing link to Killarney St (Beatson Way)”, the application said.

Auckland Council Resource Consents team leader Nick McCool, in his March 2023 decision, said: “The proposed development will fit within the anticipated spatial characteristics of the neighbourhood it is located in, and in particular with the high-density, high-rise development anticipated on the lots adjacent to the subject site, Hurstmere Rd and Killarney St.”

The surge in development flows from Auckland Council’s Unlock Takapuna strategy, being steered by its property arm Eke Panuku. This includes the town-square construction and a deal it struck with Willis Bond to build apartment blocks on its fringes, and a proposed 39-storey development at 14 Huron St which is subject to planning approval.