Clash over Farmers store plans

A huge seafront store for retail giant Farmers in Napier could be built without a Marine Pde entrance, despite concerns it will limit the greater parade and city centre pedestrian links wanted by the city council.
Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott said she wrote a "friendly letter" about the issue to Farmers and that the company replied with an explanation, indicating there were security and other issues.
The other issues were understood to involve company concerns that having a seafront entrance would have meant a step down to the floor level inside the shop that replaces three buildings currently stretching from the parade to shopping thoroughfare Hastings St.
Little has been confirmed by Farmers but chief financial officer Michael Power said: "We are still finalising the design and discussing various requirements with the council and other interested parties.
"Once we have completed the design and agreed on all planning aspects of this development we will be in a position to make a formal announcement."
The development is proposed on the sites of two Art Deco-era structures: the former Odeon Theatre and the Callinicos building and the AMP building, built about 20 years ago but left without planned upper floors in the aftermath of the 1987 finance market crash.
The sites were bought by Farmers late last year. It plans to vacate its current store, stretching through the McGruers and Blythes buildings on Emerson St through a separate building on to Hastings St, almost opposite the new site.
The new Farmers building will have a street frontage of about 70m on Hastings St and a floor space of 3500sq m.
Mrs Arnott was hopeful that if a Marine Pde frontage was not included at the outset there would be provision for changes at a later time.
The council was yesterday understood to be still awaiting a consent application.
Meanwhile, the Mid-City Plaza building, between Dalton St and Clive Square and stretching from Emerson St to Dickens St, is to undergo redevelopment.
The city council has consented to plans which will see three shops open on to the Dickens St carpark on the western side of the complex.
No lease or sale agreements have yet been made on the Napier Cosmopolitan Club site, also stretching from the parade to Hastings St.
With the deadline treaty date having passed this week, club president Graham Armstrong said: "There's been some interest, people coming through. Hopefully it will lead to something."