Wellington $25m apartment development launches sales and marketing amid pandemic

PHOTO: SUPPLIED An illustration of the planned Otto apartment block in Wakefield Street, near the Wellington waterfront.

Colourful Wellington property investor Chris Parkin is promoting a $25 million 80-unit modular apartment development in downtown Wellington, called Otto, amid forecasts of falling property prices and pandemic-driven recession.

Parkin, famous in the capital for shifting the Museum Hotel two blocks on steel rollers, rail tracks and huge ball bearings in 1993 from the Wellington waterfront to its present location on the corner of Cable and Tory streets, is marketing the development in which the key shareholders and developers are Kevin Podmore and James McArley.

Podmore, a financier and developer, was the managing director of the failed St Laurence in 2010. McArley was a director of the St Laurence Property Development Fund.

Parkin said he is a shareholder in the development company, 260 Wakefield Street Limited, but more of an investor than a developer.