New $ 250 Million Flat Surfaces for Waiwera Abandoned Hot Pools

By RNZ

Waiwera’s iconic hot pool complex closed for a $ 3 million renovation in February 2018. It never reopened.

Instead, the past two years have seen court battles over rentals and trademarks, liquidations, canceled leases, and an understanding that the damage to the infrastructure of the 50-year-old water park (and its most recent bottling plant) is so bad that almost nothing. it is recoverable.

Which leaves residents with a “bomb site” on their doorstep and a hole in their local economy. They wonder what will happen and when.

But there is a potentially happy ending to the story: The current owners made preliminary decisions this month on a $ 250 million master plan.

Evan Vertue, Waiwera project manager for real estate company Urban Partners, said pools and slides could return to Waiwera, along with a day spa, hotel spa complex, microbrewery and apartments.

“We are well advanced with the resource consent of our council for geothermal water extraction.”

While the wellness / spa complex may be a cheaper and less risky project, Vertue acknowledges that it makes sense to start with building the water park and slides.

“It’s a strong high-end traffic draw and would put Waiwera on the map.

“We have not analyzed all the investment, but we are in the stage of 250 million dollars, so we will look for other parts that give us a hand in this one.

And as for the time? The whole project may not be complete in the next 10 years, “but it will be on the right track. Patience cannot last forever.”

Waiwera means “hot water” in Maori te reo, and for centuries people have bathed in the mineral springs that originally flowed from the beach.

European settlers realized early on the tourist potential. Stories of miracle cures (such as the mill owner who came to Waiwera in the 1870s “completely crippled” and after six weeks in residence “threw down his crutches” and set out on the 38km walk back to Auckland) fueled the popularity of the resort.

On several occasions there has been a large hotel, a 400 m pier to bring in steam passengers and numerous bathhouses on the beach.

But since the 1980s, Waiwera’s fortunes have risen and fallen, culminating in the purchase of the thermal pools and water bottling companies by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khimich in 2009.

Khimich, a fast-living oil company mogul, tasted Waiwera sparkling mineral water at an Auckland restaurant while traveling to New Zealand to renovate his superyacht, and decided to buy the company.

He wanted the bottled water, but was forced to also take a water park that he never wanted.

By 2018, Khimich and his business partner (and Las Vegas-based diamond dealer) Leon Fingerhut had executed Waiwera Hot Pools on the ground and disappeared from the country, owing significant amounts of rent on the pools, among other debts.

That gave the New Zealand-based family business Urban Partners, which owns the Waiwera land, but not the water park lease, the opportunity to take over the business and develop a plan to get the pools and slides up and running. right from the start.