A prime piece of freehold land in Auckland’s CBD has been sold with an undisclosed price.

The site, known as the Cook St Depot, was put up for tender by Bayleys in December and has been sold to James Brown and Simon Rowntree, co-founders of Tournament Car Parking at “market value” after three months of negotiations.

Eight tenders were received for the 2.9ha site held under four titles, by the December 15 closing date with heavy international interest, lead agent Robert Platt says.

While the interest from overseas was welcoming, given the size of the site it was the best result for everyone it went to local buyer.

Doug Rikard-Bell bought the property for $43.5 million in 2009 off former NBR rich-lister and bankrupt Jamie Peters.

Mr Rikard-Bell had plans for an ambitious development called Rhubarb Lane, which was to be home to shopping centres, restaurants and 1084 residential units. 

The new owners have slightly less ambitious plans.

“We want to lease all the buildings up, we think there is a lot of character and a lot of architectural merit in those buildings and we want to host a number of businesses that are vibrant and dynamic for the area,” James Brown says.

There were no plans to demolish any existing buildings but capital would be expended renovating and refurbishing the buildings, Mr Brown says.

Mr Rikard-Bell was likely to re-open his business in the quarter and continue his involvement in the site, Mr Brown says.

The acquisition of the depot site complements their existing business interests nicely, he says.  

There is 148,000sq m of building floor area at a 5:1 ratio and allowable height limits in the area are 115 stories.

While both Mr Platt and Mr Brown were mum on the price of the deal, saying it went at ‘market value’, speculation is rife.

An unconfirmed report puts the deal at around $43 million compared with a 2008 valuation of $96 million. NBR will disclose the price in due course.