Oakwood Properties Ltd has been granted a two-year extension by the Dunedin City Council for resource consent to partially demolish and redevelop two heritage buildings at 250 and 252 George St.
The buildings, a street-facing shop constructed in the 1870s and a two-storey factory building behind it from 1918, were proposed in late 2020 to be redeveloped into a ground floor retail space and seven apartments.
Oakwood Properties commercial property manager Rosaria Marsh said the development was still in the very early phases.
She confirmed there would still be a retail component.
Apartments were not off the cards, but the project was at “very early stages of feasibility”.
Costs had increased “hugely” since the Covid-19 pandemic and they were still figuring out what was feasible.
Everything was “looking a bit more positive on the main street in Dunedin now,” she said.
“George St’s looking great.
“We see value in investing in the building, which is why we’ve extended.”
Resource consent was initially granted in December 2020, but several factors at the time prevented it from being given immediate effect, a report said.
Supply issues as a result of Covid-19 restrictions had “unreasonably escalated costs for the development” and also overlapped with the one-way upgrades to George St.
“The physical logistics of undertaking the upgrade work during the George St upgrade were determined to be prohibitive, both logistically and economically, and a decision was made to defer the works until after this upgrade work was completed.”
However, a key architect and engineer had retired in that time and budget estimates prepared in 2021 and 2022 were also now outdated.
The approved design was being re-evaluated to ensure it was still fit-for-purpose for the intended tenant demographic and would complement the new-look George St.
The development, when first approved, proposed retail activity on the ground floor facing George St, and seven apartments (a total of 13 bedrooms), six carparks, an outdoor courtyard and shared laundry located on the site at large.
The rear wall of the street-facing building was to be demolished and “the entire building gutted”, with the exception of roof framing.
A three-storey addition was also proposed to link the two existing buildings, the report said.
