New fashion comes to Tauranga

Portmans. Bendon. Max. Jacqui-E. These are among 20 new fashion stores being developed as major retailing quickly spreads into Tauranga's suburbs.
A fashion hub featuring many of the country's well-known retailers will open at the new Centa Max centre opposite Papamoa's Palm Beach Shopping Plaza in mid-May. It will create up to 100 jobs.
Retailers operating alongside each other include Hallensteins, Glassons, JayJays, Max Fashions, Just Jeans, Nevada Denim-Surf-Skate, Hannahs Shoes and Overland Footwear.
Australian household names such as Portmans, dotti, Colorado and Jacqui-E are moving into the Bay for the first time and Bendon is also establishing its own first stand-alone lingerie store at Papamoa.
"We are putting shopping back in the suburbs where people live and at the same time we are giving them convenience," said John Bougen, director of Auckland-based Prime Retail, which is spending millions of dollars developing the hub called Fashion Island at Centa Max.
"The customers will be able to drive right to the door of the shop instead of having to spend up to 20 minutes looking for a park at a shopping mall," said Mr Bougen. Fashion Island will have 220 car parks.
He said consumers were demanding and getting more "High Street" operations with specialty retailers. "This trend away from shopping malls is well under way in Europe and the United States."
Mr Bougen said national retailers were happy to sign up in one place because Centa Max was ideally situated in "a unique catchment" of 225,000 people living in coastal Bay of Plenty.
He said the national fashion operators leaped at the chance of doing full retail in Papamoa.
Hallensteins, JayJays, Just Jeans, Hannahs - and cafe BB's Expresso - will be opening their third stores in Tauranga and Fashion Island will also include a hairdresser, jeweller, mobile phone outlet and one or two homeware stores.
Centa Max is taking shape fast. Mitre 10 Solutions opened there before Christmas, followed by a Bank of New Zealand branch, United Video and the BayMed accident and medical centre, which also includes a pharmacy and physiotherapy.
Pak N Save supermarket is due to open by the end of next year and before then Repco, Hells Pizza and Amphora Restaurant and Bar will also be moving in.
Mr Bougen believed people as far away as Whakatane and even Rotorua would visit Fashion Island, the first of its kind in the country.
Centa Max, which is 80 per cent leased, is the third major retail centre to open in the Tauranga suburbs over the past three years - behind Fraser Cove and GatePa, which will be completed in June.
The Boardwalk shopping centre will also be part of the Papamoa Junction development and service the new Papamoa East community housing 40,000 people within 20 years.
A 5400 sq m factory outlet involving 29 brands - such as Barkers, Hero and Dirty Dog - was due to open at Papamoa Junction by Easter but this development has now been put on hold. Branded clothing and other items would sell for discounts between 30 and 70 per cent.
Duarne Lankshear, a director of MGL Properties, told the Bay of Plenty Times the outlet has taken "a little longer" to put together.
"We've got some good tenants signed up but we have put things on ice. It will happen, no two ways about it. We were slightly ahead of our time," said Mr Lankshear.
Prime Retail was the pioneer of factory outlet shopping in New Zealand, having opened Dress-Smart in Onehunga with 20 stores in 1995.
The discount shopping mall now features 110 stores. Dress-Smart also operates in Hornby (Christchurch) and Tawa (Wellington) and Prime Retail has just opened a fourth outlet at Te Rapa (Hamilton), with 36 stores selling discounted international and domestic brands.
Mr Bougen said Prime Retail considered opening a further factory outlet at Centa Max but "there's not enough stock available to do any more than four; there are only a certain amount of seconds and discounted lines to go around."