The Dunedin City Council is preparing the Wall Street mall for a possible sale, but is not yet ready to put it under the hammer.
Councillors at yesterday's infrastructure services and networks meeting were discussing a regular update from the DCC's property services department when Cr Lee Vandervis asked about the Wall Street mall.
He wanted to know whether the council would ever get to the point where the mall was in an ``optimal'' position for sale.
Somewhat surprisingly, council infrastructure and networks acting general manager Leanne Mash responded by telling the meeting that work was already under way.
The council was working to outsource more of the management of Wall Street, and resolve other outstanding issues, but ``once we have done that piece of work, it will be ready for sale''.
That appeared to contradict decisions made during the council's earlier 10-year plan deliberations, when councillors opted to remove any income from property sales from the budget.
The council had initially planned to fund part of its 10-year budget by selling $63million worth of property and other assets, but later opted to increase its debt limit from $285million to $350million instead.
Ms Mash, contacted after yesterday's meeting, clarified her earlier comments, saying no decision had been made to sell the mall.
That would require a resolution by the council, but she was working to ensure the mall was as ``attractive as possible'' if or when the council considered a sale.
That could be discussed as soon as later this year, but even so, any sale was likely to be 18 months to two years away, she said.
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Comments
A sale in 18-24mths would put the asset in the market after a number of currently forecasted interest rate rises, which would be very odd timing to sell a property, unless there is something deficient with the current lease profile. Ongoing management should be irrelevant unless again something is wrong with the current financial management. Does the Council have a defined strategy for its property portfolio?
When are these people going to learn what the word council means,it certainly does not mean real estate agents with other peoples money,the sooner the "property" department is shut down the better.