Major Investment Confirmed In Remarkables Park

Major Investment Confirmed In Remarkables Park

Porter Group Limited and Dominion Property Funds today jointly announced the completion of negotiations for Dominion to purchase all the Queenstown shopping centre assets developed by Remarkables Park Limited, Porter Group's Queenstown subsidiary.

The properties will form part of the seed assets of the institutional fund, Diversified NZ Property Fund.

The deal includes a commitment by Dominion to complete five more buildings designed by Remarkables Park Limited in the Centre.

These buildings include a two-storey building opposite The Warehouse, currently under construction, which will house Postie+ and Baby City as a key tenant, a new three- storey building to be constructed north of the existing Noel Leeming store, plus three more buildings opposite New World at the entrance to the shopping centre.

All buildings will include ground floor retail and services including more banks, with offices floors above (floorplates size 200sqm-1,400sqm), plus a regionally authentic pub and garden. The superior office facilities will provide ample parking for tenants and customers and easy access to the major arterial routes surrounding Queenstown.

The value of the sale of the current land and buildings, plus further development, has been put at more than $100 million.

Alastair Porter, director of Porter Group Limited and Remarkables Park Limited, and his brothers and co-directors John and Neville, said the aim had always been to create a memorable and successful centre.

"With over two million visitors in the past twelve months we have achieved our initial goal. For the future it will clearly benefit from having a highly resourced and experienced shopping centre owner/manager.

"We were fortunate to be approached by many top quality purchasers, and we selected Dominion because of their excellent reputation. We have every confidence they will manage and enhance the centre for the benefit of the wider community."

Paul Duffy, CEO, Dominion Funds and Chairman of the New Zealand Property Council, said his group was delighted to have negotiated the purchase of these Remarkables Park assets. He said the Porters were to be commended on the design and quality of their very successful centre.

"Queenstown is the fastest growing district in New Zealand and benefits significantly as New Zealand's leading tourism destination, so accordingly these assets have great growth potential," he said.

"The sheer scale of development planned for the large 150-hectare Remarkables Park Zone, as well as nearby developments underway at Jacks Point, Kelvin Heights and Kawarau Falls Station, all augur well for commercial developments based at Remarkables Park."

Alastair Porter said an advantage of the sales was the freeing up of substantial working capital for the Porter Group and Remarkables Park Ltd.

He said this put their group in a strong financial position to move ahead more rapidly with future projects, a number of which were announced at a press conference today (21 August).

ENDS

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