Retirement village and boutique hotel proposed for verdant resort valley
LOS ANGELES: A resource consent application for a high-end retirement village and boutique hotel in one of Queenstown’s most scenic spots is about to be publicly notified.
Local developer Chris Meehan’s company Winton is proposing “Northbrook Arrowtown” at Waterfall Park, between Millbrook Resort and Speargrass Flat.
The secluded valley, which Mill Creek meanders through, is open to the south and narrows to the north, culminating in a waterfall.
The retirement village comprises a main facilities building with pool, gym, reception and cafe, a care facility with 23 care apartments, 12 serviced apartments and 13 private apartments, and three multi-level residential buildings with 148 private apartments.
Near the waterfall would be a stand-alone 16-room boutique hotel and spa.
The development area was in the Waterfall Park zone with a small portion in the Wakatipu Basin rural amenity zone.
The retirement village would be the latest Northbrook location owned and operated by Winton and led by executive director Julian Cook, former chief executive of retirement village company Summerset.
Spokeswoman Sonya Fynmore said it was a multi-year project that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and create several hundred jobs during its life cycle.
“We are in a position to commence as soon as consent is received.”
A rolling build programme was planned.
“Once construction starts, it will be an 18-month to two-year build until welcoming the first residents.”
On water quality issues, given Mill Creek drained into seriously-degraded Lake Hayes, Ms Fynmore said restoring and enhancing the land’s natural features had been at the heart of the development, and they had “easily” spent more than $10million on environmental measures to minimise the impact and improve the creek’s health and biodiversity.
Measures included fencing to exclude stock from the creek within the development area, creating riparian margins, creek bank stabilisation and planting over 30,000 natives within their stream catchment, which had attracted more bird life including nesting falcons and “an abundance” of tui.
Though in a valley, “the tucked-away location means Northbrook Arrowtown has its own sheltered micro-climate, along with a sunny northwest aspect, making it one of the best pieces of land in the region, and why it was one of the first sites to be settled locally [in 1864]”, Ms Fynmore said.
Winton originally proposed a second retirement village on nearby rural land, but last year put those plans on hold.