Empty Willis St offices to become Wellington's latest student hostel in 2017

Friday, 1 July 2016

Conservation House in Manners St is one of the two high-profile buildings Maurice Clark has bought.

Work on a new Wellington student hostel is about to begin, after a well-known property developer snapped up two large central city commercial buildings.

Maurice Clark - the man behind the $10 million restoration of the Old Public Trust building - has bought Conservation House and the adjoining TelTower on Manners St from Australian company Brookfield Funds Management.

Maurice Clark is a well-known Wellington property developer and engineer.

Clark said he planned to turn TelTower into a new hall of residence for Victoria University of Wellington.

Work on the hostel, which is being done by Clark's construction company McKee Fehl Constructors, is expected to be completed by early 2017.

* Valuable city properties part of big sale

* An eye for the potential of old buildings

* Partygoers run amok at Victoria University student hall

* Alcohol ban imposed on Victoria University hall dubbed 'the zoo'**

*** Half-price building to be a student hostel

* Former Wellington offices being converted to apartments**

The new hall, located in Willis Street between Manners and Dixon streets. will be fully catered and offer more than 300 beds, bringing the total number of beds offered by the university to 3300 across twelve halls of residence.

Victoria University campus services director Jenny Bentley said the building needed to be upgraded and repurposed to turn a 'currently empty office building, into a high-quality hall of residence'.

'The modern central city building meets a high standard in terms of earthquake resilience, but its current layout means it is not ideal for office use in the digital age, which requires more open spaces and good connectivity between different areas of the building.

'Reconfiguring it for student accommodation makes excellent use of the building as well as supporting Victoria's strategic development.'

This project brings together the two main projects that Clark's companies Cheops Holdings and McKee Fehl Constructors have been working on over the past five years.

To date, Cheops and McKee Fehl have completed the conversion of three buildings in Wellington to hostels, bringing students over 800 rooms.

The development of TelTower will increase the total to 1130 rooms.

Meanwhile, Department of Conservation staff have moved premises, while the Conservation House undergoes strengthening work.

Clark said although the buildings were physically connected, they operated quite separately with TelTower having its own entrance lobby on Willis St.

Clark was committed to exploring ways of utilising existing buildings within the city, rather than building new structures on the fringes, he said.

'Retro-fitting and repurposing heritage and existing city building is to maintain the character and attractiveness of the urban environment.'

As part of the upgrade of Conservation House, there was an opportunity to improve the quality of the retail activity along Manners St, he said.

In the past, that section of Manners St had been dominated by bank branches, which tended to break up the flow of retailing, Clark said.

'With the banks moving to Willis St, there is the opportunity to bring into the area exciting retail outlets that will bring Manners St back to becoming an integral part of Wellington's 'golden mile' retail frontage.'