Mega-mall in Tauriko tipped to fill gap

Witchery, Cue, Country Road, Storm and Decjuba. Forever New, Kimberleys, David Lawrence and Veronika Maine.
They are all store names familiar to lovers of fashion and shopping but which you won't find in the Western Bay.
And some shoppers are heading out of town - to Auckland, Hamilton and even Rotorua - to get their designer fix.
It's not just fashion. MAC makeup and fabric chain Spotlight are other chains not available in Tauranga, although the latter is under construction at Gate Pa shopping centre.
While shops sit empty at retail complexes such as Fashion Island and Bethlehem Town Centre, plans are forging ahead for a new mega-mall in Tauriko.
And while some say there's already an over-supply of retail in Tauranga, the developers of the Tauriko Crossing shopping centre are confident there's room for a "one-stop shop" approach to shopping and an upmarket fashion mall.
"What people don't realise is there's an awful lot of retail leakage which is spent outside of the area," New Zealand Retail Property Group commercial manager Rachel Emerson says.
"That spend is going to Hamilton, Rotorua and Auckland. People are saying 'you can't get it here'."
An "awful lot" of brands, Ms Emerson says, are not represented in Tauranga. And while loathe to cite examples of brands the new mall was chasing, she says obvious gaps in Tauranga included those such as Country Road and Kimberleys.
"There's a lot of women's fashion not here. There are new brands coming out of Australia all the time."
So far, the only confirmed stores are Countdown and Kmart.
Tauriko Crossing will be a mixture of open-air bulk retail and a two-level enclosed mall.
Although the $100 million development of the 12.5ha site was put on hold during the recession, plans were now moving forward.
Tauriko Crossing will be built in two stages.
The first stage is a "large-format centre" featuring big stores such as electronics and furniture retailers. The second stage will be a two-level enclosed upmarket mall.
Ms Emerson says the receivership of The Lakes residential community nearby will not impact on the shopping centre plans.
"It will still be business as usual. The receiver will still be selling land," she says. "Anyway, Tauriko Crossing is much more than a neighbourhood shopping centre; it's regional. The Lakes is not critical to it."
The shopping centre will attract shoppers not just from its doorstep, but the wider region.
"It will pull [shoppers] from Matamata. People in Matamata don't shop in Tauranga currently. When this is here, 30 minutes down the road, it's closer to them than Hamilton, and they will come for it."
While some letters-to-the-editor writers have criticised the development as unnecessary and detrimental to the CBD and community shopping, Ms Emerson does not believe this is the case.
"The region is growing, you can't forget about that. We do believe there is [room for more].
"Some of the other newer retail centres in town are there for those towns or suburbs. They should have their own [facilities] - you should be able to have your PostShop and cafe and some fashion close to home.
"You should be able to shop near home, but it doesn't mean they should be big, grunty regional centres [such as Tauriko Crossing]."
Bayfair shopping centre manager Andrew Wadsworth says Bayfair was constantly on the look-out for stores not yet available in the region.
"We have brought quite a few new brands to Bayfair since we [AMP Capital Shopping Centres] took over in December 2006.
"We are aware of various brands that aren't represented in Tauranga. We are in continuous discussion with those guys to bring them in."
The mall has just one vacancy at the moment, limiting the ability to accommodate new stores.
But Mr Wadsworth says the centre was working on attracting a particular brand, although he could not say which.
Bayfair's market research indicated that out-of-town shoppers were already heading to the Western Bay specifically for a retail spend-up.
"People do come here for day trips. People come from Whakatane, Rotorua, Matamata, even from Hamilton.
"If you come to the Mount you have got some great shopping ... at Bayfair, you can go to Baywave or go to the beach - you can make a day of it."
Tauranga's population is forecast to increase - SmartGrowth says the population will double by 2050.
And although the mall component of Tauriko Crossing is unlikely be complete until almost 2020, Mr Wadsworth is unsure if the population will be big enough to sustain more retail.
"At the moment we obviously do have strong population growth, but we have to appreciate that's off a low population base.
"In that time frame, that might change. At this point in time, Tauranga itself has got enough retail as it is.
"If we start growing more [retail], we will get retailers starting to struggle."
Downtown Tauranga manager Kirby Weis says the CBD's appeal lay in its mix of shops and services.
"A mall is just for shopping, whereas your city centre is there for a lot of things.
"There's a lot of variety, it's the whole mix: the cafes, the bars and restaurants, the arts and culture environment.
"The strength of the city centre or downtown is we have the best of everything. All the major stores, and individual boutiques which provide specifically for the Tauranga market."
Mr Weis says it was a fact that Tauranga has an over-supply of retail.
"Tauranga's unique - we have got 14 different centres for shopping. There's no place I know of in all of New Zealand, let alone the southern hemisphere, that has 14 different areas just for shopping, and a population that's only 130,000."
And he does not believe that over-supply will change by the time the mall phase of Tauriko Crossing opens.
"It was [oversupplied] till 2016 before the downturn in economy, and now we are probably oversupplied in retail till about 2020.
"I wouldn't think it's going to get any better.
"The disposable income is not there," he says.
"Basically, all that's happening is the amount of money being spent on retail is being spread thinner and thinner."