PHOTO: The Palmerston North post office and clock tower, 1927. GEORGE SHAILER/MANAWATÅ« HERITAGE
According to STUFF the new owners of Palmerston North’s old Post Office building are “steaming along” with plans to construct a five-storey hotel behind the heritage façade of the derelict central city building.
After sitting empty for five years, vandalised and ruined by a fire in October 2021, Safari Group’s purchase of the building in September delighted the city.
Safari Group director Damien Taylor confirmed just before Christmas that a franchise agreement with Wyndham Hotels would see the development branded as a Tryp hotel.
He said planning for the 86-room hotel was ahead of programme, with a chance construction could start even earlier than the November 2023 target.
He said consultants had all been engaged and were making good progress on the preliminary design.
The first cut of the elevations and façade and a full three-dimensional scan of the original post office façade were being incorporated into the plans.
The team would be back in Palmerston North early in the New Year to meet city council planners for a pre-application meeting ahead of applying for consents.
“We are ahead of programme, with a lot of water to still go under bridge,” he said.
As well as providing hotel accommodation, the building would include a health spa, retail opportunities, a conference and meeting room and a gym.
Taylor said Palmerston North had long been on the group’s radar as ripe for a world-class hotel, and the group would use its experience of working with heritage buildings to ensure the street front of the buildings honoured the past.
The group had not dismissed the idea of restoring the building’s clock tower, but Taylor said that would be a complex in terms of engineering, and the number of stakeholders who would need to be consulted before a consent could be considered.
Central Economic Development Agency chief executive Jerry Shearman agreed the city needed more accommodation for visitors attending events and conferences.
A recent survey of residents’ views about the visitor industry in the city highlighted concerns about the look of run-down buildings in the city centre, and the lack of top-class places for people to stay.
Shearman said the hotel development would help overcome those perceptions.
Taylor said the completed hotel complex was likely to be valued around $50 million.
If the current rate of progress continued, it could be finished and opened in mid-2025.