Linda Trainer GM asset Management Kiwi Property talks about the Sylvia Park expansion. Video / Michael Craig / Kiwi Property
Sylvia Park will be by far New Zealand's biggest mall when it opens its expanded shopping centre space this month, adding an extra 2ha of indoor floor area and 57 new shops in its $277 million project.
The Herald was invited for the first look inside The Galleria, an upstairsglazed-roof addition to the serpentine temple to retail therapy opening before the Christmas season.
The new mall Galleria is 300m long, end to end. Photo / Michael Craig
Linda Trainer, Kiwi Property's general manager of asset management, said the Mt Wellington centre would have 12ha of indoor floor space after the October 15 opening of most of the new Galleria shops - an upstairs area debuting Farmers and French cosmetics giant Sephora at the suburban mall.
Hamilton's The Base is 81,000sq m and Christchurch's Westfield Riccarton is 54,000sq m but all our malls pale in comparison to Melbourne's regional Chadstone with 22ha or 220,000sq m of floorspace.
Trainer said with the new addition, Sylvia Park would be 104,000sq m, or 10ha, but combining the bulk retail Sylvia Park Lifestyle across the Mt Wellington Highway adds a further 16,600sq m.
Some shops are nearly ready for stock to arrive. Photo / Michael Craig
All up, Sylvia Park's mall and lifestyle centre now stands at 120,600sq m, or 12ha, of lettable floor area, following completion of the contract won by Naylor Love.
The centre also sets New Zealand's record for having the most carparks: 5000, "and they're all free", Trainer said.
"What's encouraging is the investment by retailers in this Covid environment," she said of the challenging retail environment.
Not all shops open on October 15. Photo / Michael Craig
"Ten of New Zealand's favourite retail brands are already at Sylvia Park," she said, citing Farmers, Kmart, The Warehouse, Kathmandu, Torpedo7, Hallensteins, MacPac, H&M, Zara and Country Road.
Three escalators will take shoppers to level one: an existing escalator towards the central outdoor atrium has been flipped for better pedestrian flow, a new escalator has been built at the motorway end of the mall and the new 8100sq m Farmers is the only store so far with its own internal escalator.
