Liz McDonald15:40, Apr 30 2019
After legal debates over fractions of a millimetre, a final court decision has at last cleared the way for a $190 million repair and rebuild project in central Christchurch.
The owners of the old Rydges hotel, attached city council car park and now demolished Grant Thornton office tower have spent years battling insurers Vero and Mitsui Sumitomo in the High Court and Supreme Court.
All three buildings suffered damage in the 2011 earthquakes.
A ruling on the latest case in the High Court means Singapore-based owners Emmons Developments will be applying for building consents within weeks.
Emmons Developments will repair, restore and reopen the 14-storey hotel and car park, and rebuild the 12-storey office building alongside. The property also had shops at street level.
Spokesman Peter Woods, of Anthony Harper lawyers, said the property had "good insurance cover" of $190m including GST, and this would cover "the vast proportion of" the project.
While there were small matters to work through with the insurers, "the big issues have been resolved so we're moving forward now", he said.
They were finalising design work for both the hotel restoration and office rebuild, and would have consent bids into the city council for both within weeks.
Woods said work on all three buildings should be able to start this year.
Last year, workers began stripping out damaged elements in preparation for the repairs, and will turn their attention next to the foundations.
"We've made some real progress with the assessment of the damage and the reinstatement methodology, so Emmons is optimistic they can crack on and get it done," Woods said.
The office building is expected to take more than a year to build, and would have a new look compared with the one demolished in 2012, he said.
Woods said it was too early to talk about tenants and the company was focusing on replacing its lost and damaged assets. However, it was optimistic about filling the buildings because of the location next to the convention centre, he said.
Rydges has a new hotel on Latimer Square and Emmons Developments will look for a new operator for its hotel.
The office tower tenants have now settled elsewhere, including law firm Grant Thornton, which is in The Terrace.
Indemnity payouts of $43m have already been banked, and the rest of the insurance will be paid out as work is done.
The latest case concerned repair strategies for the hotel and car park, including whether the width threshold for filling concrete cracks should be 0.2mm or 0.4mm.
The hotel, built as Noahs in the 1970s before becoming Rydges, is reportedly in sound structural condition. Emmons had originally wanted to demolish the car park.
Emmons Developments' sole shareholder and co-director is Singapore-based Naoaki Sun.
The company bought the property in 1990 and refurbished both the hotel and office building just before the earthquakes.
