Braemar Hospital, one of New Zealand largest private hospitals, is expanding and moving to land it has bought opposite Waikato Base Hospital, with building expected to start in September.
The existing 7581 sq m site on the corner of Tainui Street and Lake Road has been the base for the 46-bed surgical Braemar Hosptial since 1924. The land and buildings, owned by the Braemar Charitable Trust, are being sold by tender through Colliers International’s Hamilton office.
Braemar Charitable Trust chief executive Paul Bennett says the new hospital will be much bigger than the current facilities to cope with the growth in demand for private surgical services.
“We looked at expanding on the existing site but it would have meant 18 months of disruption to staff and patients and their families. It was better for everyone to move to a purpose-built hospital at a new site.”
Until the new hospital is ready in the first quarter of 2009, Braemar Charitable Trust will agree on a sale price with a new owner and negotiate a lease over the existing premises.
Colliers International director Mark Brunton says the site that has stunning views over Hamilton Lake and the city is ripe for redevelopment. It is zoned for high density residential under the Hamilton City Council’s District Plan and can be used for a number of proposals.
“It could be subdivided into 12 top end house sites, a comprehensive project containing 12 townhouses or a high rise development with more than 49 apartments. The site has a height limit of 12.5 metres.”
Brunton says the trust is intending to put a caveat on the site’s title so it cannot be used for a surgical hospital, but if an investor wanted to reuse the existing buildings, they could potentially be converted into aged care, birthing facilities or other medical related services.
The site has a CV of $6.6 million and Brunton says in reality the property is most likely ready for the demolition ball.
Braemar Charitable Trust has owned the hospital and property since 1970 when the owner doctors transferred the Braemar Hospital company to the trust.
The property has an interesting history. The land on which the hospital sits was once owned by Thomas Jolly who bought it for thirty shillings an acre from Major Jackson Keddell of the 4th Waikato Regiment. Keddell had been granted 400 acres for his services during the Waikato campaign in the land wars.
In 1894 Jolly died after being gored by a Jersey bull and in 1905 his family began breaking the estate up. An early buyer of part of the estate was Andrew Brewis, uncle of Edward Brewis, one the founding directors of Braemar Hospital.
The hospital started as Tirohia maternity hospital and was converted to a medical and surgical hospital by Sister Frances Young with a name change to Braemar in the 1920s. In 1931 Young built another maternity unit known as Waione on an adjoining piece of land and later converted it to a nurses’ home serving Braemar Hospital.
When she retired in 1935 she leased the hospital to two nursing sisters but found she couldn’t maintain the property and decided to sell to a boarding house keeper.
Alarmed at the potential loss of the hospital, three Waikato doctors leased the property and formed Braemar Hospital company in the 1940s as at that Waikato Hospital was “closed” to general practitioners who wanted to operate on their own patients. They eventually bought the entire property in 1963 for 25,000 pounds.
|