Chalets and ice rink due to start

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 232, 23 February 1988, Page 26

Chalets and

ice rink due to start

Sceptics doubting whether The Hamlet Resort will ever get off the ground are in for a surprise.

According to Hamlet developer Harvey Bell, work will begin i n March or April on the first stage of the grandiose resort. He plans to have six or seven timeshare chalets fronting Miro Street completed and on the market this winter. And if the lOha site can be drained in time, the ice-skating rink to be built and covered in as part of the hotel complex will be open this winter as an openair rink. Mr Bell expects his company, The Hamlet Resort Ltd, will invest about $1 million this year. Much of the expense will be in creating 280m of roading. In total there will b e 580m of roading in The Hamlet.

The main features of The Hamlet are: • A 200-room hotel incorporating t w o restaurants, a 400-per-son conference centre, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a tall observation tower, two squash courts, two indoor tennis courts, an indoor ice skating rink and 200 car parks. • Forty-two own-your-own apartments, 14 of them three-storey and 28 two-storey. • 18 houses facing Miro Street. • 92 timeshare chalets. • Creation of 120150 jobs and an arrnual payroll at current levels of $3 million. The first few Swissstyled chalets will be marketed under a unique timeshare formula whereby a deed of trust

will be issued to buyers as a tangible form o f ownership. Phase 2 of development will be a block of 14 apartments and 12 more timeshare chalets. Work is scheduled to begin on this phase straight after the 1988 ski season. Phase 3 embracing the hotel and probably two more lots of chalets and apartments is due to start in March next year and to be completed in January-February 1990. Phase 4 comes last with the balance of chalets and apartments and recreational facilities. Mr Bell says the current state of the economy does not worry him because once site work starts there will be plenty of interest in the resort. Told there is some cynicism about whether The Hamlet will come

to pass, Mr Bell says that while things change every day and some people think the economy is in a mess, "we're of the opinion we can generate business". His company has a $10 million marketing budget for the next five years and intends to create its own market. The Hamlet will target the domestic market as its primary source of business, though there are plans to bring charter groups direct from Australia. Mr Bell says it's important that commercial aircraft can land in the ^ Waimarino district so that charter flights can come to The Hamlet. To this end investigations are underway to extend and develop the Raetihi airstrip. Mr Bell hopes that small jets will be able

to land and take off locally. Commenting on comparative markets, he notes that Queenstown is getting the overseas market and Taupo is becoming expensive.. they're pricing themselves off the market. "The assumption is that everybody wants to go to the water, but we don't believe it." The Ruapehu area is a unique region because of its proximity to the main centres of population and it offers many things besides skiing such as fishing, white water sports, pony trekking, tramping, mountain walks and so on. "Obviously we need the cooperation of a lot of people in the region to make this thing work, but there is a good base of resources that should be promoted for the good and the future of everybody here." Mr Bell is reluctant to talk figures when it comes to marketing budgets and development costs because he believes it's these that make people sceptical. Under questioning, however, he discloses that his company is working to a $40 million budget for the whole project.

The hotel itself will cost about $20 million and in the long-term is probably the only asset the company will retain, and even this will be in partnership with an operator. Mr Bell hails from Bells Junction at Rangiwaea, in the backblocks behind Ohakune and Taihape, where his family have been farming for 75 years. His father Rio, originally from Wanganui, and mother Jane still run the family farm there and his two brothers Arthur and Manson have their own farms in the district. One other brother, Roland, works for IBM in Wellington. Educated at the Rangiwaea School and Wanganui Collegiate, Mr Bell is an accountant by profession and has spent the last 13 years in business in Britain. Over the five years before returning to New Zealand last year he was in the building industry, doing mostly renovation and conversion work with old Victorian houses. One of his most interesting projects, which he is still supervising, has been turning a 1410 Gloucestershire Inn back into cottages.

Mr Bell and his wife Philippa, a native of Devon, have two children aged two and four weeks, and have returned to New Zealand to provide a better way of life for their youngsters. However, over the last 12 months Mr Bell made five trips back to Britain and ex-

pects to make two or three this year to keep an eye on his business there. He says the new automatic Taihape telephone exchange has greatly improved communications facilities. With a facsimile machine in his home plus STD international di-

alling he plans to run his entire business operation from Rangiwaea. Although an Ohakune site office will be opened on the lOha Miro Street property for saies and promotion, The Hamlet's main marketing office will eventually be in Auckland.

The development company is currently owned by 14 shareholders, many of whom are local people who originally purchased the site. In due course their shareholding will reduce to 12 per cent. But all of the funding and development responsibility has been

removed from the other shareholders and will be borne initially by Mr Bell. And though new shareholders may yet take up equity positions in the development, his objective is to always maintain a controlling interest.