Woop! Waterfront TOWER hotel RIP

Updated Post 15.4.14

### dunedintv.co.nz April 14, 2014 – 6:46pm
Hotel may be dead in the water
Dunedin’s multi-storey harbourside hotel appears to be dead in the water.
Just before this bulletin went to air, development company Betterways sent a copy of a letter noting a memorandum of understanding deadline had passed.
The company signed the memorandum with the council earlier this year, amid hopes the $100 million project could find a way forward. That followed a DCC resource consent committee decision not to allow the hotel.
Betterways director Jing Song told 39 Dunedin News the project was over. She said she was left speechless by the council’s lack of communication.
Ch39 Link [no video available]

HURRAH HURRAH HURRAH
Hmmm, wonder how much that just cost the ratepayers???
Or was this just a little timing hiccup because of the Royal Tour.
Will Daaave go begging, again.
From the start Betterways has been acutely useless at Communication.
Was never going to be a sound investment. Jing should be thanking Us.
But is it true.
Dunno, read tomorrow’s ODT….

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Comment to ODT Online (unabridged):

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Related Posts and Comments:
1.4.14 HOTEL Town Hall… Another investment group…
25.3.14 Hotel We LIKE: Distinction Dunedin Hotel at former CPO
11.3.14 Hotel MOU: DCC #fail
10.3.14 Hotel: DCC and COC sell out Dunedin community to Chinese trojans
26.2.14 Hotel: Rosemary McQueen on consent decision LUC 2012-212
14.2.14 Hotel: The height of arrogance
12.1.14 Dunedin (apartments) Hotel: Better ways to lipstick a pig
7.1.14 Dunedin Hotel (apartments): Who ARE the developers?
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed
5.6.13 Hotel decision . . . (the vacuum)

► For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel: The height of arrogance

Don’t care how much you’ve spent on slapping Dunedin’s face, chook.
GO AWAY —give your ‘Swarovski crystal’ to some other place.

Bored housewife syndrome:
If you’ve spent a million already your consultants are out of control.

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### ODT Online Fri, 14 Feb 2014
Harbour hotel now ‘a long shot’
By Chris Morris
The woman behind the plan to build a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin says the proposal is now “a long shot”. Betterways Advisory Ltd director Jing Song, of Queenstown, told the Otago Daily Times she was frustrated by the delays and cost involved, after spending more than $1 million so far on pursuing the project at 41 Wharf St.
Read more

DEPLORABLY, Mayor Cull has held several meetings with the developers in Auckland “to try to advance the project”. The Mayor deliberately mixes HIS politics with a resource management matter, SHAME.

*Mr Rodgers is Mr Cull’s personal solicitor.

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Related Post and Comments:
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin (apartments) Hotel: Better ways to lipstick a pig

Dunedin Hotel proposed [screenshots from fly-by video by ARL]

Let’s “Articulate” the Dunedin waterfront, let’s sculpt and distort ideas of cheap tower design, or hey, we could use explosives. We’re not the first to think of it —the “prettying the tombstone” part.

This is late reply to the evidence to hearing from Auckland’s Jeremy Whelan of Ignite Architects, entitled Dunedin Hotel Design Direction Analysis, dated 18 March 2013, for Betterways Advisory Ltd (applicant).

Whelan presented 16 “exemplars” of “design directions” for the proposed tower at 41 Wharf Street. These outlined possible(?) cladding and modelling options —none of which were part of the actual application for resource consent. Previously, we had listened to Dunedin architect Francis Whitaker wax lyrical on the considerable merits of the slab design for an interminable three hours in submission —it would be an insult to call the pronouncements ‘evidence’. Unsurprisingly, by the time Whelan came to trot his stuff ALL had become uncomfortably strained in the Edinburgh Room despite a toothy semblance of tolerance shown by the hearing panel.

The following images are selected and scanned from photocopy evidence of Whelan’s 25-page PowerPoint presentation, thus drop-off in picture quality and sharpness. Nonetheless, you can see where he’s headed, to win the panel… (it simply wasn’t enough that Animation Research Ltd had removed the rail corridor to ‘contextualise’ the tower by rendering fake gulags up to its base).

The exemplars were presented in the serious hope that resource consent would be granted for a near 100-metre tall building that (at the time) had not been “designed” or detailed sufficiently clearly by the applicant.
Enjoy. [click to enlarge]

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█ Betterways Advisory Ltd is a company directed by Steve Rodgers, a Dunedin solicitor. For a very short time Jing Song was appointed as a director of Betterways —her directorship started and ended (or so it appears) the same day that Wharf Street Property Ltd was incorporated.

From NZ Companies Office records:
Former Director (Betterways Advisory Ltd)
Full legal name: Jing SONG
Residential Address: 56 Old Coach Way, Rd 3, Drury 2579, New Zealand
Appointment Date: 05 Apr 2013
Ceased date: 05 Apr 2013

LMW Trust Ltd is the sole shareholder for both Betterways Advisory Ltd and Wharf Street Property Ltd. Steve Rodgers is co-director/shareholder for LMW Trust Ltd, with solicitor and vineyard owner Evan Moore. LMW Trust is a shareholder in other (wine-based) companies directed by Jing Song.

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█ Further to Jeremy Whelan’s art of persuasion (gasp, where was the budget?) here’s a sample of manipulated images that might equally apply.

### dezeen.com 8 January 2014
Photographer Victor Enrich turns a Munich hotel upside down and inside out
A hotel in Munich is stretched, twisted, distorted and exploded in a series of 88 manipulated photographs by Spanish photographer Victor Enrich.
Enrich, who also works as a 3D architectural visualiser, based the series on one view of the Deutscher Kaiser hotel, a building he passed regularly during a two-month stay in the city. Some images show parts of the building turned on their sides, while others show sections of it duplicated or sliced away. Some shots show it curving into different shapes and some show it pulled it apart.
Describing the manipulation process, Enrich says: “What I basically do is create a 3D virtual environment out of a 2D photograph. The process involves capturing the perspective, then the geometry, then the materials and finally the lighting. The techniques I use are often described as ‘camera matching’ or ‘perspective matching’ and several 3D software packages provide functionalities that allow you to perform this.” He does a lot of the work by hand to “reach the level of detail needed to achieve high photorealism”.
Read more + Images

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Hotel (apartments): Who ARE the developers?

“I’m pretty sure that Ping and Jing and the developers want some conclusions too … they don’t want to be still working through this in six months’ or a year’s time.” –Mayor Cull (ODT)

An interesting statement – any names? Who are the developers? All we heard in evidence, name-wise (not fully explained), was the source of the building plans at China (“tweaked” by some unimaginative pasty sell-out hailing from Auckland).
In the argybargy over resource consent Jing Song always came across as a naive young woman (of potential wealth) with no real idea of how she was being used by the circling sharks of Dunedin and elsewhere.
Despite fronting at hearing she certainly had no idea about the standard of information required for the application process, seemingly duped by legal advisers to play dumb, who maybe weren’t that clear either. The youthful husband never turned up.
Still, “they” might surprise us with something that is well designed and sensitively scaled —but that would cost. To be erected in Queenstown or Christchurch. Given the state of our airport and its relative disconnection with the country’s major international gateways, would it be any wonder.

Image: Jing Song, left, and Ping Cao were married at the Grand Mercure Nelson Monaco resort (Nelson Mail, 10.9.11) Story via stuff.co.nz.

How much has DCC spent on schmoozing the ‘wealthy’ Chinese?
Any New Zealand finance going in (to the ‘university hostel’)?

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### ODT Online Tue, 7 Jan 2014
Talks on hotel bid ongoing
By Chris Morris
The fate of Dunedin’s proposed $100 million waterfront hotel hangs in the balance, but a decision on whether to proceed – or abandon the project – could be just weeks away, it has been confirmed. Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull told the Otago Daily Times all parties were working to address “complex” issues but he could offer no guarantees a way forward could be found.
Read more

To learn more, enter the term *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

‘Yellow Balloon’ —Blue Oyster invitation to (TOWER) Submitters et al

To Everyone who enjoyed the sight of artist Shane McGrath’s Gelber LuftBallon flying HIGH over Customhouse Quay on Monday 15 April

AND

To ALL Submitters on the (LUC-2012-212) Betterways Advisory Ltd application to construct a 28-storey hotel and apartment building at 41 Wharf Street

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You are warmly invited to the forthcoming exhibition hosted at Blue Oyster Art Project Space | Basement, 24b Moray Place, Dunedin

[public domain] Submitters may find their submissions pinned to the wall.

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Gelber LuftBallon (Dunedin Research Project) is a series of new work created by Melbourne-based artist Shane McGrath.
McGrath’s practice has used rockets, planes and zeppelins as metaphors for escapism, exploration, memory and tragedy. For this series McGrath has been investigating the public debates around Dunedin’s proposed wharf hotel development. McGrath sees the issue as one that concerns the city as a whole, which has the potential to impact dramatically on the city’s future.

During the public submissions process there were calls for an on-site, tethered balloon to be used as an indication as to how tall the hotel would be. Using this suggestion as an entry point for his investigation, McGrath launched a balloon near the proposed site on Monday 15 April. In this context the balloon is not only a practical object for measuring height, but also references times of conflict (barrage balloons) which were designed to allay fears of attack and also to indicate that the city was under attack.

Gelber LuftBallon is not a didactic work or a protest, but simply a catalyst to encourage debate and add to the ongoing dialogue. The results and ephemera of the research project and balloon launch will form the core of the exhibition at the Blue Oyster which opens on Tuesday 23 April.

Watch the video at http://blueoyster.org.nz/upcoming/shane-mcgrath/

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Shane McGrath has a BFA and an MFA from Massey University. In 2011 he was commissioned by City Gallery Wellington to create a permanent sculpture in Wellington’s Glover Park as a part of the The Obstinate Object exhibition. He is represented by Bartley and Company, Wellington.

Blue Oyster Art Project Space
The Blue Oyster Arts Trust (BOAT) was founded in Dunedin in 1999 as the governing body of the Blue Oyster Art Project Space that provides a high quality, dynamic program of experimental and innovative contemporary art practice. BOAT is a non-profit and non-commercial organisation that is made up of practicing artists, curators and other creative professionals. The art project space allows a diverse range of artists to work experimentally, free from commercial restraints and irrespective of the stage of their career. Blue Oyster aims to broaden the interest and understanding of contemporary arts by providing a forum for discussion and debate regarding contemporary art issues.

The Blue Oyster is supported by Creative New Zealand | Toi Aotearoa and Dunedin City Council | Kaunihera-a-rohe o Otepoti

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Shane McGrath —Gelber LuftBallon (Dunedin Research Project)

Artist sculptor Shane McGrath successfully built and flew, with the help of friends, a helium-filled yellow blimp today at Customhouse Quay in Dunedin.
Relatively still air conditions twice allowed the ‘friendly’ LuftBallon to gain maximum height – simulating, indirectly, the proposed height (96.3 metres) of the hotel and apartment tower planned for the vacant site across the road at 41 Wharf Street.
McGrath had earlier made sure the planned flight received CAA clearance.
The blimp contained smaller balloons filled with the gas to guard against a sudden downing. A small team of men, including McGrath, coordinated the length and position of the guide-lines, keeping the blimp off surrounding buildings and roads, and out of harbour waters.
The bright photogenic structure – alternately Lemon, Zeppelin, Chrysalis – hovered impressively overhead for half a day, long enough for professional photographers and camera people to take stills and recordings from the site and prominent vantage points around the city.

Images: Elizabeth Kerr

Gerard O’Brien’s outstanding photographs place the Gelber LuftBallon in the city context – see tomorrow’s Otago Daily Times.

█ Enter *hotel* in the search box at right to learn more about the proposed hotel and apartment building for 41 Wharf Street.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Ballooning! —playing off Betterways

While the DCC ‘red carpet’ gets gazumped by Christchurch mayor Bob Parker’s trip to Sister Cities exploring joint ventures with Chinese investors to build HOTELS (and more!) . . .

. . . independent artist sculptor Shane McGrath has a crack at ‘height indications’ down at the Dunedin waterfront on ● MONDAY

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Originally from Melbourne, McGrath completed his Master’s in Fine Arts at Massey University in 2009 and is establishing a trans-Tasman practice. In March 2012 he completed a major new public art work for a park in central Wellington, was an artist in residence at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery in Melbourne and had work included in the Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney.

29.11.10 3News — The focal point of Shane McGrath’s Fight or Flight exhibition is a phallic-shaped zeppelin. Video

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr