54 Cook Street is a four level office building, with ground floor reception, car parking and building services and three upper levels of office space.

The property is located on a high-profile corner site fronting on to both Cook and Nelson Streets, one block from the Sky Tower and the development of the new $450 million conference centre. The location provides ready access to the motorway and arterial routes along with good views to the north and west, towards the harbour. While the property is towards the southern edge of the Auckland CBD, as previously noted there has been significant recent redevelopment around the nearby Victoria Quarter.

The building was constructed in circa 1969 and was refurbished in 1990 (interior) and 1995 (exterior).The building has an IEP of 75% NBS.

The current tenant is vacating the building, but the vendor of the property has agreed to make a $2 million cash payment on settlement to offset the loss of rental income.

The building currently has a floor ratio of 2.7:1 versus a District Plan limit of 6:1, therefore there is an ability to increase the floor area and unlock additional value. Typically this would not be economically viable to achieve, however the stud heights of 3.7m – 5.3m between floors would allow mezzanine levels to be cost effectively added increasing the rentable area for the property and therefore adding value.

Options for improving 54 Cook Street include full refurbishment to high quality modern office space and attracting a new tenant(s) on long term leases.

Alternatively the property could be converted to a hotel, residential accommodation or short stay serviced accommodation, however this would necessitate an upgrade to 100% NBS, which may affect the forecast profitability of these development options compared to office refurbishment. The Manager is unable to accurately forecast the costs of such an upgrade without a detailed engineering plan.

Absent such a conversion, 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.

Any refurbishment will likely involve relocating building services to the roof in order to increase the lettable area and the number of carparks at ground level, and an exterior façade upgrade to modernise the building.