Getting busy at the business park

SAFE AS HOUSES: Safeguard Self-Storage Gisborne site manager Jeremy Castles. Picture by Paul Rickard

Three years from conception, Gisborne's new business park is now fully sold out and has a major national company waiting to set up shop there.

Aerodrome Business Park at Aerodrome Road is an 18.5-hectare industrial development consisting of 28 building sites ranging in size from 3360 square metres to 1.07 hectares.

Co-developer Russell Moylan said while all sections had now been sold, with the last one selling last month, there was still plenty of action to come.

“Some quite exciting things are happening now. Several businesses are operating out there now, including AF Thompson, Heavy Equipment Services, McFall Fuels, Earthwork Solutions — and soon to be, Civil Project Solutions and Safeguard Self-Storage Gisborne.

“We also have a company operating nationwide that will be opening its first office in Gisborne in the near future.

“At the moment, there must be more than 100 staff working out of the subdivision and, within six months, those numbers are expected to get closer to 150, with the new businesses moving in.”

The business park concept was designed in 2018, with the first sections going to market in 2019.

A particular selling point was that nine sections had been zoned for aviation. Of those sections there is one where development has been completed and has a helicopter operating from it.

Mr Moylan said he expected further aviation-based development to start at the other sections in the near future.

“The whole experience has been very straight forward,” Mr Moylan said.

“The council have been easy to work with and all the owners are very happy with the development in terms of how it has been done, with quality in mind and the value of properties out there continues to increase.”

The latest business to be setting up is Safeguard Self-Storage Gisborne, due to open to the public mid-July.

Manager Jeremy Castles said the business involved two concepts, around self-storage and work-and-store.

“Work-and-store are bigger units for tradies to work out of. They offer sizes from 60sqm to 120sqm. They have kitchenette and bathroom options and three-phase power available in larger units.”

A total of 164 lockable self-storage units had also been set up on the site, all of which were behind a high-tech security monitoring system.

“It's secure, people pin in to gain entry to the property and when they exit, that activates the alarms in each unit, with an on-site manager also available during office hours and more than 20 cameras.”