Four top international brands set up shop in CBD

Tim Pope of Brookfield Multiplex in the newly completed Rockport shoe shop in the Deloitte Centre. Photo / Martin Sykes

Four new international-brand shops open in Auckland's new Deloitte Centre at 80 Queen St at the end of this month.

The shops opening on October 30 will sell clothes and shoes and North Face will also sell tents, sleeping bags, backpacks and outdoor equipment.

Lacoste is being fitted out on the Queen/Fort St corner.

The fitout of Ben Sherman on the Fort/Jean Batten Place corner is well under way in a British theme. Fitting rooms are like a gentleman's library.

Shoes are already being put on shelves at Rockport on Jean Batten Place.

North Face on the Jean Batten Place/Shortland St corner is almost finished and the back wall of its four changing rooms sport one image of Mt Everest climbers.

The shops complete Brookfield Multiplex's $200 million development of the 21-level tower tenanted by BNZ and Deloitte.

BNZ has opened its new-look retail outlet on the Queen St frontage and espresso business Altezano has opened a cafe in the triple-height entrance foyer to the offices on the Queen/Shortland St corner.

True Alliance of Sydney took the head lease over the four new shops. Simon McChesney-Clark, its retail general manager, said the brands had never leased dedicated stores in New Zealand although the four labels were sold in other shops here.

"There's never been a development in Queen St like this before," he said.

Louise Church and Jessica Martin of Colliers International negotiated the commercial terms of the deal with True Alliance on behalf of Brookfield Multiplex.

Tim Pope, development division regional director of Brookfield Multiplex, said his company had spent at least $10 million restoring and re-creating heritage elements of the Jean Batten building.

That structure was incorporated into the new development and plaster ceilings with ornate cornices were developed in the new retail areas, he said. He wanted people to appreciate the money and work which Brookfield Multiplex had poured into the heritage aspects of the project and took offence at comments critical of the business in its approach to the Jean Batten building.

Church and Martin said the four new shops marked a change in Queen St retailing, continuing the luxury-brand offer further down Queen St with Louis Vuitton and Gucci.

Other retailers in the area said the rents on the four shops were high and the average for the area is $2000/sq m to $3000/sq m.

"I don't know how those new shops will pay their own way. We looked at going into 80 Queen St but we couldn't justify the huge rent, it was far too expensive,"' one apparel retailer nearby said.