The sale of Wellington’s skinniest building has delivered a vote of confidence in one of the capital’s most battered precincts.
CRBE listing agents Dharmendra Mistry and Rick Stace told OneRoof that scores of buyers sought private viewings of the unusual property at 9A Tory Street, in Te Aro, which had been looking for a buyer willing to spend around $1.3 million.
Owners Mary McIntyre and David Copeland transformed the former Shacklock stove factory into a cool hybrid work, home, office, and Airbnb.
They had bought the Art Nouveau-style building for just over $1m in 2015, when it was a “complete and utter dump”.
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They told OneRoof at the time that their children had flown the nest, and they were looking for a project.
They employed a young architectural designer, Keegan Summers, straight out of architecture school and gave him a two-word brief: industrial Zen.
The 1910 Art Nouveau-style building was renovated in 2016 and turned into two apartments with a shop on the ground floor. Photo / Supplied
The project turned out to be bigger and more expensive than initially thought. “All the regulations had changed,” McIntyre told OneRoof. “It became a massive project, and we just literally threw so much money into it. We had all kinds of hiccups along the way.”
The biggest curveball thrown their way was the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, which severely damaged the Reading Cinema car park immediately opposite the home and prevented them from visiting the site for five months.
McIntyre and Copeland did move back in but eventually relocated to Taupō and put the Wellington property on the market.
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Interest in the building was a vote of confidence in the suburb, Mistry told OneRoof last week. “There’s so much happening in the area. The Court, which was known as Reading Cinemas, is opening soon.”
The Court is a major development for the area, and will house cinemas, a CityFitness gym, retail and hospitality operators.
Outdoor clothing and equipment retailer Patagonia has set up shop next door at 13 Tory Street, and on the other side of the street a wellness studio has moved in. “And behind the property on the Wakefield Street side, the Lido apartments are being built at the moment,” Mistry said.
Mistry said 9A Tory Street had appealed to owner-occupiers and commercial investors. “It’s not every day you get a property that suits both investors and owner-occupiers. Normally it’s one or the other.
The one-bedroom apartments were rented on Airbnb for between $230 and $270 a night. Photo / Supplied
“A lot of [owner-occupier buyers] had an idea of what they’d like to do with the ground-floor commercial space and potentially occupy one of the apartments, which were renovated to a pretty high standard. It’s a very appealing, interesting building, and it’s in a great part of town.”
Mistry said that although the property took over a year to sell, the vendors got the price they wanted. “They went with an offshore buyer who’s a New Zealander living overseas. He’s been looking for property on and off for a while. He’s got family here in Wellington, and he comes over regularly, so he inspected it himself,” he said.
“He was super impressed with the fit-out and the way it was all tastefully done. It’s a very attractive building. That really appealed to him [as did] the location.”
The buyer intends to keep the existing commercial tenant downstairs and let the two apartments as short-term rentals as they are now, Mistry said.
The apartments were let on Airbnb for $230 to $270 a night during the sale period, which made viewings difficult at times. Mistry buttered up guests with vouchers for meals at the precinct’s popular Panhead Brewery to facilitate viewings.
“We had to do [viewings] between an Airbnb customer leaving, the place being cleaned, and someone else moving in at 2pm. It was quite a process trying to find a window of opportunity. We even had to ask a handful of [guests] if we could bring people through and give them a voucher.”
The property, which occupies an 80sqm site, has an RV of $1.43m. The sale is due to settle later this month.
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