The Covid curveball has forced breast surgeon-turned-developer John Harman to abandon plans for $200 million luxury apartment block.
At the start of the year, Harman was all set to turn land next to his award-winning St Marks development, on Auckland's medical mile, in double grammar zone Remuera, into 69 high-end apartments.
Now, the land is for sale, with tenders closing on December 3.
Covid-19, and the subsequent lockdown, had forced Harman to reassess his life and future. "I’m 67. I’ve only got so many good summers, and this would take another four years of my life,” he said.
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Harman said the pandemic had made him realise the importance of family. He has retired and re-located to Queenstown with his wife, award-winning real estate agent Karen Spires, and son Jack, 16.
“Jack is into golfing and skiing and mountain-biking, he’s back from [ski racing school] in the States. Covid made us look a bit inward and think about the family. I thought ‘oh, bugger it, let’s just enjoy life'. I don’t need the money.
“Covid’s done that, it’s shown us what’s important.”
The design for the 69-apartment Mark II included courtyards and a wellness centre. Photo / Supplied
In Mark II, Harman and Spires had dreamed of creating a community of city livers who would use the roof-top garden and wellness centre with a heated pool, sauna, spa, clubroom, wine room, private dining and outdoor barbecue area, meeting in the yoga and exercise room and communal foyer with a barista.
The project was launched in late-February, with six apartments sold, but the Covid lockdown put everything on pause.
A six-month delay on the renovation on the family's Queenstown apartment has also reinforced to Harman how complex Mark II would be.
Supply-chain problems had meant problems for their builders; the Italian furniture the couple had ordered will be held up for nearly a year on the high seas somewhere.
“Imagine that multiplied by 70 or 80 apartments. We still don’t know what it will look like, how hard will it be to get building supplies,” he said.
The original St Marks development was a success. Photo / Supplied
He also sensed reluctance from buyers to commit to homes that may not be finished for three years or more.
“People became risk averse, and we couldn’t tell them when we were going to start building. There was a lot of [apartment] product finishing, so they could buy ready-made homes to move into straight away.”
The 4201sq m of land Harman has owned for 20 years is being sold with the consented plans for a luxury development of one, two and three-bedroom configurations, priced from just over $767,000 to $11.2 million for the penthouse. Harman’s company has already done all the ground geo-tech work “so you don’t get any surprises. My advisers said do it properly so you can plan correctly, and we did.”
Harman said that there had been interest from both retirement home developers and the emerging build-to-rent sector. “It’s a very desirable location,” he said. “Someone will buy this. It will be very successful to do the same again, but bigger.”
Harman accidentally became a developer when he took up the suggestion of his planners to add apartments to the state-of-the-art medical centre he was building for St Mark’s Breast Centre
“I’m a big fan of apartments – I live in one myself – so I thought, Why not? It could be fun. I expected I would hand everything over to a developer but they were all busy doing their own thing, so I decided I had better get on with it and do it myself."
He said that he loved that the café at St Marks had become quite a lively community. “The community and family side of things matter to me. I’m half Fijian – family life and shared community spirit is very important to Fijians.”
