Mall giant tries to shut plaza shops

By LIBBY MIDDLEBROOK

Shopping mall giant Westfield has just reopened a sparkling $100 million mall in Glenfield.

But across the other side of the North Shore, a row has broken out between the giant mall developer and a tiny cluster of Albany stores.

Westfield is fighting retailers near an undeveloped Albany property, which will eventually house the third North Shore-based Westfield mall.

Westfield has gone to the Environment Court to try to stop up to 19 retailers from trading in a new development called the Northridge Plaza, a strip of shops in Albany's bulk retailing centre.

Westfield, which has seven malls in Auckland, claims four of the stores inside Northridge Plaza are in breach of a resource consent issued by the Takapuna District Council.

It is seeking an injunction from the Environment Court to shut down the plaza, owned by international property developer Neil Group.

"Our view is that certain shops are in breach of their resource consent," said Westfield New Zealand director Grant Hirst.

"We have every right in this business to protect the value of our property."

The property is in a successful bulk retail zone on the Auckland side of the North Harbour Stadium.

Westfield is expected to open an Albany mall within the next five years on the land it bought from Neil in 1996.

The company also plans an enormous, $450 million, mall development in Newmarket - a proposal which has outraged the existing local retail community.

When Neil sold the Albany property to Westfield, it agreed not to build shopping centres at the fringe of the undeveloped mall site, minimising Westfield's future competition. The clause recently expired as Westfield had not developed its Albany mall, allowing Neil to go ahead with Northridge Plaza.

About 50m away from the Westfield site, the plaza accommodates retailers such as Pumpkin Patch, Paper Plus and Just Kids, the kind of stores often found in a Westfield mall. The plaza's 19 units are large and the rent is cheaper than a retailer might pay in a Westfield mall.

In dispute is a clause in Neil's resource consent allowing only bulk retailers to set up shop inside the plaza, where four stores opened last week. A further six units have been leased, although the shops are yet to open.

Mr Hirst believes four of the plaza's stores do not fall under the "bulk retailing" umbrella, although he declined to identify them.

In a brief statement to the Herald, Neil denied any non-compliance of the resource consent.

Plaza tenant Ballentynes is confident its store complies with the bulk retailing clause in Neil's resource consent. "This is a significant investment for our family and if it fell over it would really hurt us," said Graham Ballentyne, who heads the privately owned company.

Ballentynes invested $250,000 to set up the store, which employs six.

Paper Plus chief executive Gary Donoghue said the company had secured an additional resource consent for its plaza store, despite being covered by Neil's consent.