SkyCity buys TVNZ land for $10.6 mln, broadcaster to put cash into upgrading main building

SkyCity Entertainment Group has agreed to buy prime real estate from state-owned broadcaster Television New Zealand for $10.6 million as part of its $402 million international convention centre in downtown Auckland.

The Hobson St sites in New Zealand's biggest city sit next to land already owned by the casino and hotel operator, and are part of its plan to wear the cost of building a convention centre in exchange for controversial gaming concessions.

TVNZ agreed to the sale after reaching agreement with shareholding ministers Bill English and Craig Foss to forgo dividends net of the sale proceeds, and allow the cash to be spent on refurbishing the broadcaster's main Auckland building on Auckland's Victoria St West, where it plans to house its entire staff.

The Crown-owned company will spend two years upgrading its online technology "to fully integrate systems that will support the automated delivery of video content to all its on-air and online platforms," it said in a statement.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.