Ownership of all the former Bureta Park land is about to turn over with both the recently completed Countdown supermarket and the adjoining vacant land under conditional contract.

Colliers' Tauranga managing director Simon Clark says the sale of the Countdown supermarket is expected to be finalised soon, and the remaining 1.4 ha of bare land has gone conditional.

The supermarket and the vacant land are selling.

Finalising that contract could take six to nine months because a consent will be required for the buyer's plans.

'It is quite a long process where they have got to get a consent then they will try and pre-sell the units on the site so that will be another six to nine months before that goes unconditional.

'They have got to get a consent before they start selling. They will be going under the housing accord I would imagine. They will be going high density and trying to get dispensation under the housing accord. So that's not a simple process.”

The proposal to redevelop the Golden Grove Holiday Park in Girven Road into 66 special housing area townhouses and apartments was announced in November 2015, and the council decision is expected next month, says Simon.

'I don't know if it's in that same process or not, but it just takes a while.”

The land is zoned residential, one of the issues residents had with council when the supermarket application was made and one of the reasons it was originally declined.

'I wouldn't imagine that they are going to push the envelope with height. It's just the number of physical units that are on the land,” says Simon.

In December 2009, Perry Developments obtained council consent for an 86 apartment development over the whole 3.4ha site, with a special zoning allowing 11m, or three storey high buildings.

The residential zoned 1.4ha land is the leftover from the $9 million Progressive Enterprises purchase of land from Perry's for the Countdown supermarket.

The $20 million Countdown Bureta opened for business in November 2014 – and was placed on the market a year later along with Countdown St Johns, Auckland, Countdown Crofton Downs, Wellington, and Countdown Dargaville.

'All four of them area going under contract to one party,” says Simon. 'There's about another month before that goes unconditional.”

There were five offers but the vendor chose a single party whom Simon believes will then on-sell.

'They (Countdown) don't retain a lot of property. Their growth comes from finding new opportunities and building new supermarkets, but they traditionally do long leases on them.

'We sold another portfolio through Auckland with a group of 20 of them that was owned by a private investor. We sold that for circa $350 million last year.

'They were all independently owned supermarkets leased by countdown, so they are more of a tenant than a long term owner of real estate.

'They develop them, lease them, sell them. A lot of the bigger corporates are that way, they make more money out of their business than they do out of owning the real estate.”