AUSTRALASIA – The SkyCity Entertainment Group, a casino and hotel operator in New Zealand, has lodged a resource consent application to Auckland Council for the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) and an adjacent five-star 300-room SkyCity hotel and pedestrian laneway to be developed separately.
SkyCity Chief Executive Nigel Morrison says this is a significant milestone for the project, following a further six-month preliminary design process involving close collaboration between the NZICC design team and the Crown.
The resource consent application contains plans for a public gallery entrance, multiple meeting rooms, a 3,000-seat theatre and an exhibition floor. A luxury hotel will be built alongside the NZICC with a pedestrian laneway of bars, restaurants and boutique shopping running between the two buildings.
Morrison says that design improvements to further enhance the quality of the convention centre facility and which are required to meet the design brief for the project set out in the NZICC Agreement, together with significant recent and expected construction cost inflation, has meant that early estimates of the full cost of the development have had to be revised to a range of NZS$470-530m (US$365-412m) depending on the level of future construction cost inflation.
Morrison adds that SkyCity and the Crown have agreed to extend the date for formally approving the preliminary design of the NZICC, which includes agreeing both the design and the total construction cost, until the end of February.
“The final timeline is still to be determined but once the designs for the NZICC are finalised with the Crown and resource consent is granted by Auckland Council, SkyCity would hope to sign a binding construction contract in the final quarter of 2015. SkyCity expects the construction process to take apporximately three years to complete after signing the contract.”
Conventions and Incentives New Zealand (CINZ) expects the new ICC, once opened, to have a positive economic benefit that extends beyond the boundaries of Auckland.
“This new development will put New Zealand on the map, and the benefits to the region and the whole country are significant,” said CINZ Chief Executive Sue Sullivan. “The NZICC will allow New Zealand to host conferences of a size not seen here before. We immediately become an international player, challenging Australia and South East Asia for convention business.
“It will give us the ability to tap into markets, we’ve been shut out of in the past because we simply haven’t had venues big enough to cater to their needs,” she adds.
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