Ten planned, under-development, stalled or gone-quiet Auckland CBD projects are enough to make you celebrate, or cry.
These 10 dominate conversations as much as they influence the ever-changing face of our dynamic city centre.
They include once-prominent plans which have either gone extremely quiet or stalled.
As we prepare to ride the $5.5 billion City Rail Link later this year and take joy in visiting the new NZICC, progress emerges from some sites.
That includes Mansons TCLM’s $650 million office project at 35 Graham St on the ridge above Fanshawe St.
Also, one of the 20 sites, described last year as “dire“, due to being bulldozed and left, is at last changing, albeit into car parking.
News is slow to emerge at other sites where plans were announced two years ago: Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad and their local consultants are quiet at the much-promoted planned Symphony Centre beside the Aotea Centre. Design changes could be underway.
Yet we can also celebrate a series of huge wins in the CBD, like the buzzing Commercial Bay with its new PwC offices, downtown eateries and shops, as well as Peter Cooper’s popular Britomart.
Bosses behind the single most audacious planned multi-billion dollar project are pushing “go” later this year.
The following is a list of some of the city centre’s largest projects - planned, quiet, and otherwise.
This is New Zealand’s largest new under-construction single commercial office project.
Yakka Construction demolished the ex-Auckland Council offices on this block at 35 Graham St, leaving only BJ Ball House.
Mansons TCLM is now building new offices, having won consent for an 11-level twin-block project, connected via a central atrium.
The design shown in one plan is for a building to be 24,649sq m, or 2.4ha, of indoor floor space.
Some large tenants are looking for new space, including major trading banks, now in extremely dated buildings.
Old offices often lack green star ratings, so the banks fail to meet their commitments to sustainability and the environment.
Precinct Properties’ CEO Scott Pritchard vows to start this year on the twin-tower 55-level and 45-level Downtown Carpark redevelopment, Pūmanawa o Tāmaki.
Procurement discussions are underway with several main construction contractors and sub-contractors, “with good levels of interest”, Pritchard said last year.
Works are expected to start, “following pre-leasing and construction procurement”.
Precinct has applied for fast-track consent for the many apartments, hotel rooms, offices and common areas the project could bring.
On January 12, it reapplied after withdrawing its original December 2 application.
The development is to be three podium buildings, two towers and four levels of shared basement.
New public spaces and a new laneway network are to create more connectivity within the city centre.
Modifications are to be made existing adjacent buildings HSBC and Aon to create that new laneway network.
Hong Kong’s Wilson Parking and Singapore’s Kum family and its M&L Group is livening up the bulldozed Albert St site of the Food Alley and Yates Building.
Work is happening at the site between Federal St, Wolfe St and Albert St, across the road from the J.W. Marriott hotel.
“A long-vacant central site on Albert St in downtown Auckland is set for a positive transformation, with owners M&L Group and Wilson Parking partnering to upgrade the site,” a joint statement said.
The level but empty site, which previously had a barbed-wire-topped fence, appeared in a Herald feature last year, which chronicled the dire state of our CBD.
Is this the best we can do, one block from the waterfront, create car carking?
In 2024, Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson said it was very sad the site had been left in that state for so long: “Auckland deserves better,” she said of the 4371sq m block.
Precinct has also started its 638-bed $201m student block in the CBD.
Icon is building that 32-level tower at 256 Queen St.
Precinct aims to have the tower finished for the start of the 2029 academic year.
Icon also built a new 18-level student accommodation building with 758 units at 66-77 Lorne St in Auckland CBD.
That is for Cedar Pacific, with UniLodge to be the operator. Like Precinct’s Queen St tower, the Lorne St block was designed by Ashton Mitchell.
Last October 14, Precinct announced its Queen St project had started.
Seascape is perhaps the worst thing to happen in our CBD in many years.
We have only partial completion of this $300m 56-level tower, whose developer, Shundi Customs, is now in receivership.
Not until May 11 will the receivers release their initial report showing what went wrong.
“What a shambles the inner city is. What an eyesore that building is,” said one Herald reader.
Again, it’s Precinct for a third major city project, this time with Orams Marine in a controversial waterfront Wynyard Quarter scheme.
Call this a waterfront watershed because plans are for a 23-level 80m tall apartment and carparking building across the road from the Wynyard Quarter’s tallest existing apartment.
Precinct’s fast-track application for 188 Beaumont St seeks consent for “a marker building containing approximately 215 residential apartments with in-built flexibility for use as serviced apartments, ground-floor retail activities and associated car parking”.
Neighbours are fuming. A resident of the Madden St block, developed by Willis Bond, said: “There is general horror and concern in the community.”
A head contractor is to be appointed this year to the Foodstuffs (North Island) New World Victoria Park, so badly burned on June 17 that Nikau demolished most of it.
Nine months after the fire at New Zealand’s most valuable New World, no rebuild application has emerged, although its owner/operator says they are “going at full pace on design”.
Residents of Herne Bay, St Marys Bay, College Hill and surrounds lost their supermarket and mourn what they see as the slow progress.
Stride Property is leasing three CBD waterfront sites from the Auckland Council, for new hospitality/offices blocks opposite ASB North Wharf.
CEO Philip Littlewood announced plans for a redevelopment of two of the three properties with the company’s results in November.
Design and consenting is underway for a 10,500-12,500sq m premium mixed-use retail and office development, he said.
The combined area of the sites on Jellicoe St, facing the pedestrian North Wharf Promenade overlooking the sea, is 3672sq m.
Little has been heard of the Symphony Centre for months.
MRCB renovated Bledisloe House and plans to build the Symphony Centre on a neighbouring site.
RCP director and project development director Cristean Monreal was previously prominent on the scheme.
A local PR consultant said she no longer worked on this account.
Monreal went to MRCB, which issued an update.
“The Symphony Centre remains an important project for MRCB International. Our team is currently working with our project partners to optimise the design to further align with current local market and construction conditions. We look forward to providing further updates in due course.”
That obliquely refers to a possible redesign to meet the poor market.
The Symphony Centre office and apartment project is planned beside the Aotea Centre on what was a carpark used for the Auckland Council’s fleet behind Bledisloe House.
This scheme has also been cited as a sign of CBD revitalisation.
Resource consent was granted in 2023.
Sector leaders have empathy for the Malaysians, saying now is not the right time for such a big scheme, given the economic downturn. Few apartments were sold there so far.
Monreal did, however, talk last year about RCP’s involvement in the Bledisloe House refurbishment.
Last February, the Herald reported on funding for the St James Theatre on Queen St.
It was once one of Auckland’s premier concert venues.
Auckland Council voted to commit $15m in funding to restoration.
That followed a $15m commitment from the Government through the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 26 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.