Rental car company GO Rentals has begun construction of a modern, new facility for its back of house car grooming and maintenance at Nelson Airport.
The facility, a 230 square metre building on a 2000 sqm site, is the first phase of Nelson Airport’s future development plans. The airport has been granted resource consent to develop 8000 square metres of land and create a road at the southern end of the airport precinct.
Construction of GO Rentals’ new building began on Monday, June 19. It will provide for the company’s car grooming, maintenance and vehicle storage on-site, allowing for more efficient servicing of its airport rental car fleet. The facility will be complete by early 2024.
Clear roofing panels will reduce day-time lighting requirements, recycled asphalt millings are part of the asphalt mix and aggregates that are removed from the Value Carpark will be reused in the construction of new pavement around the site.
GO Rentals chief operating officer James Dalglish says the development is an exciting step for the company and Nelson Airport, and will contribute to GO Rentals’ journey towards a climate-friendly rental car fleet and operations. The company already offers a range of electric vehicles within its Nelson fleet, including Tesla’s, BYD and new hybrids.
“We know our customers want low-emission options and our goal is to increase these at Nelson Airport over time. By this time next year, a third of our fleet will be clean-energy powered (a mix of EV and hybrid),” James says. The new facility will be equipped with EV charging facilities.
GO Rentals is paving the way in the car rental industry in terms of sustainability and climate change action and is New Zealand’s first rental car business to partner with CarbonClick. When customers rent a vehicle with GO Rentals, they get the opportunity to offset their emissions with CarbonClick – reducing the impact of their drive and can calculate their driving footprint by offsetting via the website. The rental car company are also proud to be Toitū net Carbonzero recertified, accurately measuring the greenhouse gas footprint of their business.
“We have a lot of confidence in Nelson Airport as a base of operations and can see a strong future for GO Rentals in this location,” James says.
The airport has seen passenger numbers return at a stronger rate than forecast over the past year, and is now anticipating 900,000 travellers will have passed through the terminal by the end of the financial year on June 30, 2023.
Airport commercial manager Simon Barr says the development shows the return of travel demand post-Covid is great for airport-related businesses and the wider region.
“A successful airport contributes to the sustainability and prosperity of the region, so we’re thrilled to see the return of activity and the exciting development that it’s unlocking at the precinct, including this development with GO Rentals.”
The next phase of the airport’s development plan is to create additional commercial and light industrial tenancies in the area currently occupied by the Value Carpark. Work is underway to look at the options for catering for future carparking demand in a different location. Work will commence soon on consent applications for future development stages.
