Victoria University of Wellington is selling off two dozen properties with a combined value of more than $20 million to help clear its large deficit.
The vacant Kelburn properties range from move-in-ready student accommodation to dilapidated staff offices.
Victoria University director of campus operations Simon Johnson said the decision to sell the properties, which it has owned for at least 13 years, was made in August last year.
The university had spent the interim period working through the “required processes” to ready the portfolio for sale. He said the proceeds would be used to reduce the university’s $33m deficit.
Start your property search
Discover more:
- Buyer loses $5m deposit after walking away from $30m land deal
- Mutant Mickey Mouse artist selling NZ's most colourful house
- Birthplace of Wellington's out-there Olympics bid up for grabs
OneRoof’s calculations show the combined rateable values of the properties were in excess of $20m. Some of the properties have changed status such as a house being bowled from the site or being separated from another dwelling and the rateable values had not been updated to reflect this.
Bayleys has been appointed to sell the portfolio individually, in part or altogether. Some of the 24 properties are on combined titles and have to be sold together.
Bayleys Wellington general manager Grant Henderson said it was a rare offering as a large portfolio of properties, especially in highly regarded suburbs such as Kelburn, did not often come up for sale.
“It’s just an amazing opportunity for the right buyers. It’s such a great mixture of property across the board in some fantastic locations.”
Inside one of the Adams Terrace properties. The portfolio being sold off includes student accommodation and former university office buildings. Photo / Supplied
He did not expect the diverse range of properties scattered around Kelburn to be picked up by a single developer, investor or flipper, but said it would likely be bought by different purchasers depending on their needs.
“We wouldn’t be imagining anyone would be buying them – Mount Street, Rawhiti [Street], Waiteata [Road] and Fairlie [Terrace] – as a parcel because there would be no need to because they are geographically streets apart so there’s no advantage in owning them all,” Henderson said.
The only properties that might be bought together as a strategic purchase were the student rentals on Adams Terrace, he said.
A row of eight houses with a total of 43 bedrooms on Adams Tce has been used as student accommodation and has a combined RV of $5.25m, and neighbours a pair of residential rental properties on a large 3653sqm of land also on Adams Tce, which has an RV of $5.6m.
Henderson said these two properties were the most complex because they could not be sold individually even though they each had multiple houses on them.
What’s for sale:
• 24-40 Adams Terrace: Eight rental properties used as student accommodation on 1009sqm of land in one title
• 42-58 Adams Terrace: Two houses used as student rental accommodation and a car park on a 3650sqm section in one title
• 73 and 75 Fairlie Terrace: Run-down single bay and double bay villas on 341sqm and 316sqm sections. Used as office many years ago and need full renovation to be habitable
• 49 Rawhiti Terrace: 476sqm empty section
• 3 Waiteata Road: 1930s character office that could easily be converted into a family home
• 15 Mount Street: Two-storey weatherboard character office building that could be converted into family home
“The eight you must buy together as one lot so you will be tendering on all of them. The other houses on the piece of land [marketed as a development site] must be sold as another lot.”
Henderson said the student accommodation on Adams Terrace could appeal to institutional buyers needing to house people because they were move-in ready and had the potential to be split back into their individual titles.
An aerial view of some of the properties on offer. Photo / Supplied
Meanwhile a 1930s home at Waiteata Street was the one property more like a home in its current state than any of the others being sold, Henderson said, and would be the easiest one to convert back into a family home.
“Waiteata still maintains its original character – it’s a Spanish revivalist. It’s got oak-paneled hallways, beautiful feature staircase and a working kitchen. Waiteata is one that someone will buy, go ‘yip I’m renovating it and tidying it up and living in it as a home’.”
The other villas including one on Mount Street, which had an RV of $2.03m, had been used as office spaces by the university and had “rudimentary kitchens and bathrooms”.
The most run-down of these were the single-bay and double-bay villa at 73 and 75 Fairlie Terrace. The uninhabitable villas were last used as office space many years ago and needed full renovations.
Henderson said. “It will require some inventive person to get in there and understand how they are going to modify the floorplates and just do internal modifications back to what they would have been originally I suppose.”
Wellington’s derelict Reading Cinema complex is also up for grabs. The 14,964sqm holding is in the heart of the capital's CBD. Photo / Mark Mitchell
However, he said they were all in “fantastic” Kelburn locations and all had potential to be restored back into lovely homes.
A 476sqm bare section on Rawhiti Terrace was also up for grabs after the home on it had been bowled. Henderson said it was surrounded by beautiful, substantial homes and could appeal to someone who wanted to build on it.
Some of the properties were also zoned as special purpose education and it would be up to the new buyer to convert it back to residential use, he added.
Bayleys was unable to give a price indication on how much they would sell for and was instead inviting people to make offers via the tender process.
“The great news is that the end user of this is going to be able provide more housing in Wellington, more homes for people to live in because it was all geared towards students – but now that it’s not fit for purpose for the university’s purposes – it now opens it up to a whole new range of buyers and needs in the city which is fantastic.”
Meanwhile the deserted Reading Cinemas building on Courtenay Place and adjacent landholdings on Tory, Taranaki and Wakefield Streets is also for sale. The property was listed for sale in July after a deal involving Wellington City Council purchasing the land for $32m collapsed.
JLL, which is marketing the properties, declined to answer OneRoof’s comments about the listing. However, the marketing blurb described it as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to own 1.5ha of flat development land in Wellington’s CBD.
Last week, the Herald revealed a large parcel of land in Lyall Bay near Wellington Airport had been bought by interests linked to Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh for $105m. No plans have been confirmed for the site, but it had previously been reported that Jackson had shown interest in building a film museum on the land.
- Victoria University's Kelburn properties are for sale by tender, closing September 25
