Key backers Remarkables Park Ltd and Skin Institute Queenstown announced yesterday construction of a four-storey, 6000sq m facility in Hawthorne Dr would start late this year or early next year.
The project is a joint venture with a yet-to-be-named private hospital provider, and the building is expected to cost $20million. Equipment and the medical fit-out add a further $10million.
Pacific Radiology will be its anchor tenant, but will begin operating an MRI scanner in a temporary facility in Remarkables Park this autumn before moving into the new building.
Remarkables Park chief executive Alastair Porter said Queenstown residents and visitors would gain access to surgical and clinical services previously not available in the resort.
He expected the private hospital provider to be announced in the next few months.
Confirmed tenants were Skin Institute Queenstown and Queenstown Regenerative Medicine. Potential tenants included a surgical endoscopy service, eye clinic, GPs, an urgent care clinic, immunotherapy clinic and surgical consultants of all major specialties.
Mr Porter was ''totally confident'' more tenants and investors would be confirmed soon.
''We wouldn't have gone out with this if we didn't have a wide range of people keen to participate in the facility.''
Queenstown was on track to become the South Island's third-largest population centre.
It was ''highly desirable'' residents and visitors had a wider range of medical services available than at present, Mr Porter said.
Pacific Radiology Group chief executive Dr Lance Lawler said in a media statement that Queenstown's ''critical'' need for MRI services meant it had decided to begin offering MRI services in a relocatable building this autumn.
Its scanner would be the latest model and would give local doctors access to some of the most advanced imaging techniques in the country.
A similar project was first mooted for Frankton a decade ago, when Remarkables Park, Southern Cross Hospitals, Skin Institute Queenstown and Queenstown Medical Centre announced a joint venture for a hospital and healthcare complex.
Southern Cross lodged a resource consent application the following year, but later withdrew.
Yesterday's announcement means the resort's much-publicised lack of either a CT or MRI scanner could soon be a thing of the past.
Last August, the Southern District Health Board (SDHB) announced it was ''exploring options'' for a CT scanner as part of a multimillion-dollar upgrade of Frankton's Lakes District Hospital.
SDHB deputy commissioner Richard Thomson said it had been aware of interest in developing a private healthcare facility in the resort, but had not been involved in its planning.
The SDHB was focused on improving the resort's public hospital facilities, but would ''welcome the opportunity to sit down and discuss in greater detail how the proposed facility will best complement the services provided by the DHB''.
''We don't see this development affecting our plans already announced, but of course, we will always be mindful of opportunities that might arise in the future for collaboration, as long as it benefits those who rely on public facilities and services.''
