- Canterbury Longrun Roofing.
- Vibrant Business Future.
- Industrial Park Underway.
- NZ could be Silicon Valley of agricultural knowledge.
- Business Estate contract goes to HEB Contracting Limited.
- Contract Awarded.
- Lot sales.
- Work to date.
- Local Building Products Company Set for Expansion.
- Ashburton Businesses Upbeat on Economy.
- Business Estate Takes Shape.
- Getting Down to Business.
- Plenty of Interest in Business Estate, says manager.
- Solid Progress for Ashburton Business Estate.
- National marketing magazine features Ashburton Business Estate.
- Business Park Meets Growing Need.
- $20m spent on the first stage for growing agribusiness demand but new players are sought for the long term.
- Talk to the Marketing Agents.
$20m spent on the first stage for growing agribusiness demand but new players are sought for the long term. By Greg Ninness. From The Sunday Star Times, Investment Property section, 17.10.2010
Industrial property projects are usually the preserve of private developers, but a new business estate in mid-Canterbury shows there can also be benefits when local councils take direct control of such projects.
The Ashburton Business Estate is a new 85ha development designed to meet growing demand for industrial space, which is being driven by the region’s flourishing agricultural servicing businesses.
The estate has been developed by the Ashburton District Council, which has spent about $20 million completing the project’s first stage, covering about 45ha. But the council does not intend to be a long-term owner.
The development on the town’s northern edge was originally farmland, half of which was already owned by the council.
The money spent so far went towards acquiring the land the council did not already own, designing the estate, contouring the land, building the roads, reticulating utilities to the individual sites and landscaping the public spaces.
With that infrastructure work on stage one now complete, the individual sites are being sold to investors or owner occupiers who will build the warehouses, factories and other commercial premises that will eventually line the estate’s streets.
Ashburton District Council chief executive Brian Lester said part of the funding had come from the sale of other council-owned properties and the council would be looking to recover the balance as the individual sites were sold down.
Eventually, the council hopes to make a profit from the development, but the long timeframes of 20-30 years were more than most private developers would be willing or able to bear.
“Private developers tend to look at things in the shorter term,” Lester said.
But the project should also produce what Lester describes as other “public benefits” for the town which a private developer wouldn’t necessarily be able to provide.
The main rail line runs through the centre of Ashburton and the railyards sit adjacent to its main commercial strip. That arrangement may have had benefits in the days when trains were a popular form of passenger transport, but the increasing length of most freight trains and the traffic problems they created, as well as the logistics of loading and unloading freight, made it desirable to move the railyards away from the centre of town.
It made sense to shift them to the new business estate, which also sits adjacent to the main highway. This would give businesses located there access to both road and rail transport.
Lester said the council was negotiating a land swap with KiwiRail that would see KiwiRail take land for new yards in the business estate, and the council would take over the existing yards in the centre of town and turn them into open public spaces.
However, the council would also have to make a financial contribution towards the cost of shifting the rail lines, which would be on top of the $20m already spent.
“That will provide wider benefits in terms of open space and improved traffic flows in the centre of town,” Lester said. “A private developer wouldn’t want to carry that cost.”
The main benefits would be to provide space for the town’s existing businesses to grow and to attract new businesses to the area.
Most of Ashburton’s existing industrial land was spread around several pockets, often located adjacent to residential areas ad with no room to expand.
Sites in the new business park range in size from 2500m² to more than 5ha, so could cater to almost any activity.
Colliers’ head of leasing for the South Island, Noel Gilchrist, has been working with the council on the project for the past two years and said there is good demand for sites.
“We started on the project two years ago and times were pretty good then and as you can imagine, we’ve weathered a pretty tough storm,” he said.
“But the project’s board had a vision and they weren’t going to deviate from it and that was the right call.
“We’re maintaining a high marketing presence [for the project] and that’s paid dividends because we are starting to see people re-emerge with inquiries who have been beaten up financially [in the recession] and have reorganized themselves and now need new premises.”
Sites are priced from about $85/m² to $150/m² depending on their size and Gilchrist said he expected most of the demand to come from businesses already established in the area that wanted to own their own purpose-built premises.
“In the current market the investors are out and the landbankers have gone so it’s more owner-occupiers,” he said.
“However, there are also companies from outside of Ashburton looking at taking space in the part to start or expand operations in the area.
One of those is an international company that is looking for a large site on which it can process a locally sourced commodity before export.
Industrial property projects are usually the preserve of private developers, but a new business estate in mid-Canterbury shows there can also be benefits when local councils take direct control of such projects.
The Ashburton Business Estate is a new 85ha development designed to meet growing demand for industrial space, which is being driven by the region’s flourishing agricultural servicing businesses.
The estate has been developed by the Ashburton District Council, which has spent about $20 million completing the project’s first stage, covering about 45ha. But the council does not intend to be a long-term owner.
The development on the town’s northern edge was originally farmland, half of which was already owned by the council.
The money spent so far went towards acquiring the land the council did not already own, designing the estate, contouring the land, building the roads, reticulating utilities to the individual sites and landscaping the public spaces.
With that infrastructure work on stage one now complete, the individual sites are being sold to investors or owner occupiers who will build the warehouses, factories and other commercial premises that will eventually line the estate’s streets.
Ashburton District Council chief executive Brian Lester said part of the funding had come from the sale of other council-owned properties and the council would be looking to recover the balance as the individual sites were sold down.
Eventually, the council hopes to make a profit from the development, but the long timeframes of 20-30 years were more than most private developers would be willing or able to bear.
“Private developers tend to look at things in the shorter term,” Lester said.
But the project should also produce what Lester describes as other “public benefits” for the town which a private developer wouldn’t necessarily be able to provide.
The main rail line runs through the centre of Ashburton and the railyards sit adjacent to its main commercial strip. That arrangement may have had benefits in the days when trains were a popular form of passenger transport, but the increasing length of most freight trains and the traffic problems they created, as well as the logistics of loading and unloading freight, made it desirable to move the railyards away from the centre of town.
It made sense to shift them to the new business estate, which also sits adjacent to the main highway. This would give businesses located there access to both road and rail transport.
Lester said the council was negotiating a land swap with KiwiRail that would see KiwiRail take land for new yards in the business estate, and the council would take over the existing yards in the centre of town and turn them into open public spaces.
However, the council would also have to make a financial contribution towards the cost of shifting the rail lines, which would be on top of the $20m already spent.
“That will provide wider benefits in terms of open space and improved traffic flows in the centre of town,” Lester said. “A private developer wouldn’t want to carry that cost.”
The main benefits would be to provide space for the town’s existing businesses to grow and to attract new businesses to the area.
Most of Ashburton’s existing industrial land was spread around several pockets, often located adjacent to residential areas ad with no room to expand.
Sites in the new business park range in size from 2500m² to more than 5ha, so could cater to almost any activity.
Colliers’ head of leasing for the South Island, Noel Gilchrist, has been working with the council on the project for the past two years and said there is good demand for sites.
“We started on the project two years ago and times were pretty good then and as you can imagine, we’ve weathered a pretty tough storm,” he said.
“But the project’s board had a vision and they weren’t going to deviate from it and that was the right call.
“We’re maintaining a high marketing presence [for the project] and that’s paid dividends because we are starting to see people re-emerge with inquiries who have been beaten up financially [in the recession] and have reorganized themselves and now need new premises.”
Sites are priced from about $85/m² to $150/m² depending on their size and Gilchrist said he expected most of the demand to come from businesses already established in the area that wanted to own their own purpose-built premises.
“In the current market the investors are out and the landbankers have gone so it’s more owner-occupiers,” he said.
“However, there are also companies from outside of Ashburton looking at taking space in the part to start or expand operations in the area.
One of those is an international company that is looking for a large site on which it can process a locally sourced commodity before export.
Canterbury Longrun Roofing…
Vibrant Business Future… Industrial Park Underway… NZ could be Silicon Valley… Business Estate Contract Contract Awarded Lot Sales Work to Date Local Building… Ashburton Businesses… Business Estate takes shape Getting down to business Plenty of Interest… Solid progress for Ashburton… Magazine Editorial Business Park Meets… $20m spent on first stage…
