In Dunedin, warehouses built in the 1800s were made attractive and easy on the eye, unlike the practical, no-nonsense buildings of today.
One such building on Jetty Street, in what’s known as the Warehouse Precinct, used to be right by the wharves so grain could be loaded into the ships.
Today, the old grain warehouse built in 1875 is well away from the water thanks to extensive harbour land reclamation.
One of its apartments is for sale by Nidd Realty with a price indication of around $700,000.
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It’s in the old Stavely building and is part of an award-winning “rescue” that developer Bruce Purvis and son Tony carried out after the building was badly damaged by fire in 2008.
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The facade of the building is protected by the Historic Places Trust but the interior was fair game.
Purvis thinks warehouses were built to be attractive back in the 1870s because of one-upmanship.
There was a gold rush and Dunedin was booming so with plenty of money around, he reckons one person’s warehouse was built to look better than the next person’s.
Dunedin in the 1870s was the biggest city in the country and was at the height of its “decorative warehouses” phase.
The 2008 blaze gutted the building, but the property has since been rescued. Photo / Craig Baxter, Otago Daily Times
The Stavely building has seen a lot of uses over the years, including more recently as a dance studio, but also as a nightclub in the 1970s, Purvis said.
After the fire it was derelict for a couple of years until Purvis, who said he likes a challenge, saw potential for apartments so he bought the building and worked around the fire damage to develop the interior.
For example, the fire burned the roof at the back portion of the building so they left the roof off and created a big atrium, and built verandahs around the atrium at each level, so residents have access to the outdoors from the indoors.
Apartment 6 is being sold by Pete Strong and Chris Taylor, of Nidd Realty, with Strong telling OneRoof it was “amazing” to think the water used to be so close.
What the old Stavely building looks like now, following its award-winning rescue. Photo / Supplied
“It doesn’t feel possible that that all could be reclaimed land but there you go.”
Dunedin has a lot of older buildings that were erected back when “they were still made to be pretty” which is why the city has held on to many of them, and a number have been turned into apartment buildings.
“Their industrial heritage hasn’t damaged the ability of them to be attractive places for people to live.”
The Warehouse Precinct is a mix of apartment and commercial buildings these days and is a fairly trendy place to live with some cool cafes on the doorstep as well as a couple of breweries.
“There’s one literally in an alleyway around the corner. There’s little-hole-in-the-wall places that you wouldn’t otherwise know about really.”
The apartment has an industrial vibe with brick and exposed timber pillars.
“All of these apartments are more on that industrial modern sort of vibe.
The property retains many of its character features. Photo / Supplied
“All of the apartments in the building differ as well. It’s not like a cookie cutter design which you often get with purpose-built apartment buildings.
“This one they've worked around structural pillars and things. Instead of trying to take them out and replace them, they just kind of integrated them into the design of the apartment so you’ve still got the feeling of history in the apartment rather than just feeling like you’re in a modern space in an old building.”
Another plus is that because the building is newly-converted, it has 100% of earthquake requirements done.
Strong said the $700,000 price indication was good value for the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, and Joe Nidd, owner/principal of Nidd Realty, said the building renovation was a great example of a low-density building being converted into higher density inner-city apartments to meet the needs of the city.
“It’s so great because they’ve managed to retain the heritage and increase the density and provide for what is kind of an evolving market where people want to live in the city in Dunedin.
“It’s got a lot of interesting history behind it but it’s an absolutely gorgeous building and the result has been second to none.”
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