The Ministry of Education has chosen the site of Wanaka's new primary school.
A resource consent lodged with the Queenstown Lakes District Council shows the ministry plans to build the new school and also possibly an early childhood centre on 3ha of land in the Three Parks development.
Included in the master plan for the mixed residential and commercial development on the outskirts of Wanaka is an area set aside for educational purposes.
Head of the ministry's education infrastructure service, Kim Shannon, said the ministry had started the site designation process, which could take several months to complete.
Procurement and design processes for the new school would begin once that process had finished.
The terms of the site purchase would remain confidential until the sale process was settled, Ms Shannon said.
The Three Parks site was chosen after a process which included the evaluation of 14 other sites within Wanaka's urban boundary.
Its location next to the Wanaka Recreation Centre and new swimming pool, as well as accessibility for pupils walking or cycling to school, were reasons the site was chosen, she said.
The ministry still planned to start construction of the $16million school in late 2018.
For now, it was consulting the wider Wanaka community about how the new school would operate.
Two options for the new school had been presented to the community and two public meetings were held to allow the community to have their say on them.
The first option is to build a new stand-alone school, while the second option is to build a new school but combine the governance of the school with that of Wanaka Primary School.
