Why won't anyone buy Sky World?
Why won't anyone buy Sky World?
It's nearly a year since Auckland's iMax building was listed for sale. Doesn't anyone want it?
Someone decided to have some fun with it.
Someone pulled out their adjective book and made full use of it.
Someone, to put it bluntly, tried to polish a turd.
“Exceptional redevelopment potential” screams the listing.
“Refurbish the structure into an entertainment mecca,” it demands.
“A new owner has the chance to create Auckland’s pre-eminent entertainment destination,” an overzealous real estate agent is quoted as saying.
On March 27, 2023, something shocking happened.
Sky World, the once-dominant, now-decimated Queen Street entertainment hub beloved by Aucklanders during the late 90s and early 2000s, was listed for sale.
That place is close to my heart.
Over six newsletters and a Metro magazine story I chronicled how Sky World had fallen into a state of disrepair.
I covered almost every conceivable angle: how almost every single tenant had fled and some were being pursued for unpaid rent after their rates were put up during lockdowns; how the building feels abandoned, with graffiti, janky digital signs and unused eateries frozen in time; how even the building’s architect thinks it’s a disaster; how half-hearted renovations have begun and stalled; and how oil is leaking from the escalators and the front door smells like piss.
At the centre of all this is Sky World’s long-term owner, James Kwak, who purchased the building in 2011 for $37 million through his company JNJ Holdings. Its current CV is $54 million, but any new owner would likely need to invest many more millions to renovate and rejuvenate it.
Kwak has, to date, given just one brief interview to New Zealand media. He is, by all accounts, media shy, and even fled RNZ’s cameras when a reporter door-stopped him in his own building.
Just two tenants remain: the GameOn Arcade, and Event Cinema, which has a fixed lease until 2029.
But Kwak has shown at least a passing interest in improving the fortunes of the place. Several architectural firms have crafted plans to revitalise the building. The latest of those is OnQ, a plan to return Sky World to its former glory as “the city’s entertainment centre, spanning cinemas, gaming, indoor activities and dining”.
None of those plans have yet come to fruition. (I haven’t been able to have a drink at my floating bar yet, but I’m looking forward to it.)
I’ve tried to talk to Kwak many times. I even pinned a pink Post-it note to his office door, but sadly that didn’t get his attention.
Without an interview, it’s impossible to know what Kwak’s vision is for Sky World.
Then it was listed for sale.
Clearly, he didn’t want to invest in it anymore.
Clearly, it had become too much of a problem.
Clearly, he just wanted to get rid of it.
So, in lieu of Kwak, I attempted to contact the real estate agents involved in Sky World’s sale.
When I called Ranesh Parmar, whose name is on the TradeMe listing, he was surprised by my call.
“That’s super weird,” he said. “I don't have anything to do with the sale of that property … I haven't done much work there for quite some time now.”
He asked me to send him a link to the listing, then directed me to Colliers.
So I tried to contact the commercial real estate duo Blair Peterken and Richard Kirke.
Neither of them responded either.
So I’ve had to use other methods to find out what’s going on with Sky World.
Here’s what I discovered…
This newsletter understands several key staff have left JNJ Holdings over the past year, including Kwak’s long-term business development manager.
This newsletter also understands that Sky World came close to being sold to an Australian buyer, but the deal fell through at the last minute.
It also understands Sky World’s sale has a strict deadline of 4pm on April 27 attached to it. Whatever happens, the building needs to be sold by this date, so, in a little over two months, Sky World will have a new owner.
As this saga continues to drag on, and Sky World falls further into disrepair, it’s easy to forget that the place was once a beloved, alive, and vibrant hub, one that remains crucial to the success of inner-city Auckland.
As recently as 2017, Sky World functioned as an entertainment mecca packed full of places people could rely on for a good time, no matter your age and stage.
Along with the construction site that is the St James across the road, its decrepit state has created a black hole in the middle of Queen Street, one that sucks the life out of that section of town.
People now head elsewhere: to K Rd, which is experiencing a resurgence in popularity; to the flashier waterfront surrounds of Britomart and Commercial Bay; and the scenic rooftop of Newmarket Westfield, which includes a movie theatre, several eateries, a playground and the Sky World vibes of old.
Walk around Sky World now and it feels dark, bleak and dangerous, like someone turned most of the lights off in a fever dream.
So why has it been on sale for nearly an entire year?
Go pay it a quick visit next time you’re in town and you can answer that question for yourself…
Everything you need to know…
In what is a first, a handful of New Zealand reviewers appear to have been junketed over to Melbourne to review Taylor Swift’s first Australian show, despite the fact the tour isn’t coming our way. Here’s the NZ Herald’s coverage, Stuff’s, and The Spinoff’s. I’m not jealous, but my 10-year-old daughter is. (UPDATE: I have been informed this wasn’t the case and reviewers instead paid their own way. Apologies, and congratulations on everyone’s dedication. Truly impressive.)
Speaking of Swift, we have Coldplay and P!nk to blame for her New Zealand no-show. “Our resource consent permits Eden Park to hold up to six concerts in any 12-month period,” The Eden Park Trust’s chief executive officer Nick Sautner told NZ Herald. Basically, five of those six allotted slots are already taken by Chris Martin and Alecia Moore. We need that waterfront stadium, asap.
Taranaki’s Womad festival is the country’s least controversial music festival, but next month’s event is going against the grain. A petition has been launched to remove Ziggy Marley from his headlining position because of the reggae star’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Stuff has more.
It’s a big, huge week for gigs: Wednesday plays Whammy Bar on Thursday; Sampha plays The Powerstation on Friday, and he’s headlining Splore which starts on the same day; on Saturday The National hit Spark Arena with The Beths and Fazerdaze, Meatstock hits Hamilton, while The Chemical Brothers headline Electric Avenue in Christchurch with Six60 (please take me, I want to see that show so bad).
Thanks for reading Boiler Room. This is a free edition. If you like the work I’m doing here please consider upgrading your subscription so I can keep doing more.