Two offers in for old Ashburton council site

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Jonathan Leask:

Offers on the former Ashburton District Council administration building will be considered by councillors next week.

Chief executive Hamish Riach confirmed two offers had been received for the entire site that was formerly home to the council.

“Council will consider the offers at the November 20 council meeting, in a public excluded section of the meeting,” Riach said.

The property comprises 5059m2 in four titles and the council had signed up Property Brokers agent Hamish Niles to sell the property ‘as is where is’.

The three-storey council building was built in 1974 with a basement and the ability to add a fourth storey but that was scuttled by the changes to the building standards following the Canterbury earthquakes.

Issues with the building were first signalled in 2004, and in 2015 it was decided to combine a replacement with a new library.

Earlier this year the council sold the former public library building for $1.1m to CBR Properties Limited, which plans to renovate the building into a boutique hotel.

The sale of the two sites will go to offsetting the build cost of the $62.1m new library and civic centre, Te Whare Whakatere that opened in January.