Hotel developers lease central Blenheim car parks

By Kira Carrington, Local Democracy Reporter

Nearly half of the car parks at Blenheim’s theatre and events centre will be out of action while a six-storey riverside hotel is being built next door.

The Alfred Hotel is due to open on Russell Terrace in 2027, and will run in connection with the Marlborough Wine and Food Experience and the new Oak and Ivy restaurant, which opened in the former Clubs of Marlborough building last year.

Together they would form part of a modern hospitality precinct anchored by the ASB Theatre and Marlborough Events Centre, which shared the car park.

During construction, Alfred Taylor Developments Ltd would lease the 25 car parks closest to Russell Terrace from the Marlborough District Council.

Entry to the car park from Russell Terrace would be closed, and bus services would move to the bus stop outside of Blenheim School.

The remaining 36 car parks would have their parking time limits halved from eight hours to four hours.

The council’s group property manager, Jamie Lyall, told councillors at a full council meeting on Thursday that the lease would be a huge help with health and safety and logistics at the construction site.

“[This] is about supporting the development of a new hotel for the region of Marlborough,” Lyall said.

Any damage done to the car parks during construction would be fixed by the developer after the hotel was completed.

Lyall said there would still be plenty of public parking available in nearby car parks – “250 metres away, the railway station car park [has] got an occupancy of 27%, and the [Alfred Street] parking building directly across the road from this area [has] a 72% occupancy.”

Contractors working on the hotel would be asked to park in the Alfred Street parking building, the Railway Station car park or on surrounding streets, Lyall said.

Discussion

Councillor Allanah Burgess said she was looking forward to seeing the new hotel, but expressed concern about contractors taking up on-street parking used to access nearby retailers.

“I know what tradies are like, and they want to be nice and close to the building site, but if we could just direct them to the two [car parks] as opposed to [on-street parking],” Burgess said.

“It's quite a busy area ... those on-streets [to access] the other retails that you want to pop into for 30 minutes or so are constantly used by the public.”

Lyall said that all car parks were first in first served, and keeping contractors from on-street parks would be “very hard” but he would raise it with the developers.

“The displacement of parking will probably affect the council staff in the majority, because most of the parking around this proximity is taken up by council staff.”

Councillor Barbara Faulls asked if the reduction in parking spaces would leave enough disability access car parks for the public.

Lyall said the car park had nine disability car parks, but at least half of them were non-compliant.

“They were installed primarily due to the RSA uptake of the clubs,” he said.

“We will ensure that the numbers [of disability parks] meet the requirement but it may actually result in a re-evaluation of the current number we've got.”

Moving the remaining car parks to a four-hour time limit had been requested by the new businesses that opened there last year, and the owner of Biddy Kate’s Cafe and Bar, to help improve customer turnover.

The new time limit would bring the car park in line with parking at the car parks on Queen, Wynen and High Streets.

Council staff would monitor the new time limit over the next two years to ensure it was suitable for the location.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.