Invasion of the mall monsters

Australian mall owners are battling one another for the shopping dollars of Aucklanders.

A new crop of malls is planned at Massey, Mt Wellington and Albany.

The Australians have worked out that New Zealanders fork out only about 15 per cent of their total retail spending in malls, compared with closer to 25 per cent in Australia and about 50 per cent in the United States.

We spend $55 billion in shops each year but not enough of that in malls, say the Australians.

So who owns Auckland's malls?

Westfield, headed by Holocaust survivor Frank Lowy and his three sons, are the dominant mall owners in Auckland, having eight super-malls which they prefer to call "centres". This term is a reference in part to the more old-fashioned style of strip shopping in town centres.

The Lowys have Westfield malls at Downtown in Auckland City, Glenfield, Manukau City, Newmarket, St Lukes, Pakuranga, Shore City and WestCity. Their hallmarks are an internal focus, large-format anchor tenants at either end and a string of boutique-style shops in the centre. Food courts are the hub.

We spent $1.6 billion in Westfield's 11 malls throughout New Zealand last year, up 4.6 per cent on 2003.

Catching up fast with Westfield is fellow Sydneysider and broad-based financial giant AMP, with two malls in Auckland and a third coming at Massey. It already has Botany Town Centre and Manukau Supa Centa.

Its hallmarks are an outdoor style in its shopping formats. Botany was seen as breaking the mall mould by having less of an internal focus and even a mock-street layout, harking back to more traditional days.

Commonwealth Bank-run Kiwi Income Property Trust is making a big play as a mall landlord in Auckland, with its $300 million Sylvia Park shopping centre being built on the former military site at Mt Wellington. This is yet to materialise and few plans have emerged.

Like Westfield and AMP, the bank has its headquarters in Sydney.

A fourth landlord, ING, owns Dress-Smart in Onehunga and others throughout New Zealand. ING is now expanding at Onehunga, adding 40 per cent more shops in the $16 million project. Its mark is a bargain-basement discount business with a quick turnover philosophy.

Not everyone is happy about Auckland becoming a city of malls.

Auckland communications consultant Robin Bailey was part of a group which three years ago stopped Westfield building a mega-mall on the former Mercury Energy site.

"As far as we know, it's the only time anyone has beaten Westfield anywhere in the world," he said.

"We're being mauled by the malls. The malls are dangerous because they kill local shopping strips and people are swallowed into them with their huge carparks. They don't support the rest of the community."

He is a proponent of Buy Nothing Day, an international movement which in the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy of November 26 last year encouraged millions of shoppers to stay away from the malls.

The movement - with advocates in Japan, the United States, Australia, Israel and Canada - asked people to consider whether they were shopaholics, why they bought, what they did with their purchases and whether they needed extra space in their homes to hold them all.

But the Australians know they have more supporters than opponents. They are planning more malls almost as fast as we are spending.

Westfield will soon start building its $130 million 70,000sq m Albany mall. AMP has more land at Manukau to build on and is planning a new town centre at Massey. ING has begun expanding Dress-Smart in Onehunga and Kiwi has demolished the old army sheds at Sylvia Park for its new centre.