151 Victoria Street is a five level commercial office tower with road frontages on both Victoria Street and Hardinge Street. The building originally sat on a larger site of 6,601m² which was subdivided by Mansons TCLM to allow for the construction of the new NZME House. The building has 15 carparks plus the benefit of an easement granting rights over 60 further carparks in NZME House.

The property is located on the western fringe of the Auckland CBD. The western fringe has seen a substantial amount of office development in recent times with most of the activity being focused on Fanshawe Street to the north of the Property and the section of Victoria Street West between Victoria Park and the Central Business District (where the Property is situated). This development activity has attracted a number of large corporates requiring substantial floor plates in low to mid-rise buildings including Spark, Air New Zealand, KPMG, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, NZI, Oracle and Kiwibank.

The western fringe has subsequently seen ongoing development with a number of projects either recently completed or currently ongoing. Manson’s 20,000m² development at 151 Victoria Street West was completed in the second half of 2015 and is occupied by Media Group NZME. Fonterra has begun its move into its new 12,000m² purpose built headquarters fronting Fanshawe Street. This 50,000m² development, known as the VXV Precinct, majority owned by Goodman’s and GIC Singapore and being built by Fletchers, will also house Datacom and Bayleys Real Estate.

New Zealand Post have occupied the building since 1991 and have 7 years remaining on their current lease term.

The building has potential for the lower ground footprint to be extended to Hardinge Road to create additional retail floor area, thereby creating additional value for the property.

New Zealand Post are currently under-utilising the office space, and have sub-leased levels 4 and 5 for a term of 3 years. There is an opportunity therefore to negotiate a partial surrender of lease with NZ Post, and directly lease these levels to those sub-lessees for a longer term than 3 years or agree leases with other parties at increased rental rates, and/or initial lease term beyond the 3 year term the sub-lessees have currently agreed to. The Manager also understands that New Zealand Post are seeking to sub-lease level 2, which the Manger believes presents similar opportunities as those described for levels 4 and 5.

A partial surrender of lease could include a surrender payment from NZ Post, or could include negotiation of a new longer term lease across a reduced footprint of the building (or a combination of both). The Manager considers each of these strategies could potentially add value to the property.

The building was constructed in the 1960s but has had significant subsequent refurbishment. The building has an IEP (Initial Evaluation Process) rating of 72% of NBS (New Building Standards) (as at July 2012). There is no current requirement to increase the building to 100% of NBS and the Manager believes that the costs of doing so would outweigh the benefits.