Basement walls up for $400m Mount Maunganui retirement village, The Pitau

“It’s stockpiled because we’ll need additional sand for backfilling behind those new retaining walls. We’ll use it up around the site and we don’t want to take away sand and then have to pay to bring it back in,” Dixon said.

“But that’s a fraction of the sand that’s come out. Most of it has been moved to the Northern Link bypass from Tauranga to Te Puna,” he said, referring to it being moved for construction of the $655m Takitimu North Link stage one by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA).

Approximately 32,000sq m of sand and 10,000sq m of topsoil has been taken from the site, Dixon said.

One crawler crane and one piling rig are at work.

Contractor CLL is using rammed aggregate pier piling on the foundations.

“We’re taking sand from the site and ramming it back into the ground as an alternative to traditional concrete piling,” Dixon said.

The first block of 78 apartments is due to be finished by next December. A second block is due to be finished by 2028 and the hospital in the third block by late 2029.

On June 6 last year, the project won consent from a consenting panel via the Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act 2020. That was via the Environmental Protection Authority, completed before December when the Government passed the new Fast-track Approvals Act 2024.

Plans are for 167 apartments, a 60-bed hospital with care suites, 220 car parks, lounges, a library, film theatre, a spa, swimming pool, gym and wellbeing facilities.

The project is on a 1.03ha site, zoned residential, in 10 titles at 53, 55, 55A, 57, 59, 61A and 61B Pitau Rd.

In October, Sanderson Group chief executive Jared Baronian told the Bay of Plenty Times that earthworks were progressing with the site largely retained, sheet piles installed and the basement “dig-out” progressing.

Neighbours have previously spoken out against the project, claiming they were “blindsided” when they found out it could be up to 22m high, or six storeys.

Also in October, the Bay of Plenty Times reported five apartments had sold off the plans.

Apartments are being marketed in the $2m to $3m range but penthouses were marketed for more than $5m.

Dixon cited $39m of pre-sales. Inquiry for apartments was coming from the local area, Auckland and Waikato. Three penthouses had been pre-sold, he said.

Last decade, the Herald reported how Sanderson Group founder Fraser Sanderson had netted $180m when he sold Bethlehem Country Club and Bethlehem Shores in Tauranga and the Queenstown Country Club to the previously NZX-listed Arvida Group.

Arvida was sold to United States private equity business Stonepeak.

It has since been delisted from the NZX.

Sanderson’s first village was the Ōmokoroa Country Estate in Tauranga, which grew from about 70 small homes to 160 homes.

He then built the Bayswater Village at Mount Maunganui before buying the local speedway and converting that into a village.

From there it was the Cascades in Hamilton, Bethlehem Views and what he said was the crowning glory in the Queenstown Country Club.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.