A trail of "For Lease" signs fill the empty shop windows. Photo / Warren Buckland
A trail of "For Lease" signs fill the empty shop windows. Photo / Warren Buckland
It's one of Napier's only indoor CBD shopping centres, but Ocean Boulevard mall is currently a place of broken dreams.
The mall off Emerson St has a clinical atmosphere - white walls, artificial lighting and emptiness.
A cacophony of "For Lease" signs vie for your attention.
Ocean Boulevard wasone of Napier's first indoor shopping centres, but now there's just two surviving stores - Tu Meke Don Sushi and Cool Toys - in the heart of the mall.
A food court once lured people in, but the public appetite for visiting the mall waned once the food court shut down, after losing its key tenant - McDonald's.
Napier City Council has noticed Ocean Boulevard's "decay" and its struggle for tenants, for vibrancy. The council wants to work with the owner to align the premises with its CBD goals.
But that relies on the owner opening the door to NCC - so far, it's shut.
Napier City Council director of city strategy Richard Munneke said the council had tried to work with Ocean Boulevard's owners in the past and got "shut down".
The mall has been revamped over the years but still can't get the stores filled. Photo / Warren Buckland
"We did try to get better utilisation of the parking building due to the parking issues we have in Napier but the negotiations really got shut down by the owners."
The managers of the building, Vancor Group, sent Hawke's Bay Today a statement saying the owners did not want to comment on the state of the centre.
Munneke said it was disappointing to see the mall start to fall away.
"From our point of view we would like to see a vibrant town and that space is really going into decay."
Acting Napier Mayor Faye White said Ocean Boulevard's decline was a sad story and she wanted to see the area revitalised.
Tu Meke Don owner and tenant Junko Karauria said when she and her husband, Tim Karauria, opened their restaurant in 2012 the mall was full and thriving.
"When we moved in it was all packed.
"People would always walk through and use the carpark, which kept it real busy," Karauria said.
"It's a good feeling when there are a lot of people going through and shops are all full - it makes it feel nice."
Tu Meke Don owners Tim Karauria and Junko Kaurauia have had their spot in the mall for the past seven years. Photo / Paul Taylor
But in recent years while most of Napier's CBD has started to pick up Ocean Boulevard has fallen to the wayside, she said.
"For us if we go for a short walk around town and come back we get that feeling like this is really dead and it's real quiet," Karauria said.
"We would understand us being quiet if most of the other stores were still quiet but now you can walk from one end of Emerson St to the other and it's busy all the way down."
The centre first opened in 1976 as Broadlands Mall but was sold and renamed Ocean Boulevard in 1987, one of the roughly five sales of the centre over the years.
Glen Chan, owner of Cool Toys, says ever since the food court left the mall had really died down. Photo / Warren Buckland
Cool Toys owner Glen Chan moved into Ocean Boulevard almost 10 years ago and said when the food court was open it was the driving force behind how busy it was.
"When the food court was here it really helped to bring the great ambiance and a lot of foot traffic to the mall," Chan said.
"McDonald's was the real drawcard for the mall when it was here but for some reason apparently the owner didn't like the people it attracted and moved them out."
Since then the number of vacant stores has grown and now shops that do move in don't tend to last long, Chan said.
Emerson St entrance to Ocean Boulevard doesn't really show much life in the mall. Photo / Warren Buckland
Chan said most of the stores that have moved in over the past few years have been temporary pop-up stores.
Karauria said a hair salon had opened opposite them not so long ago but within five months shut up shop after it found it hard to bring in customers.
Less than 100m down the road another of Napier's vintage malls seems to be doing the opposite and thriving.
Mid-City Plaza was built between 1920 and 1933, and remains one of the largest retail holdings in the central city in terms of land area, floor area and annual rent roll. It's recently been earthquake strengthened and is currently on the market.
Back in 2003 the mall had colour and a vibrant entrance to welcome customers. Photo / Andrew Labett
At Ocean Boulevard, those left say they are struggling to get by.
"If I could survive on just them [regular customers] I would set up a store in a cheap corner with better rent and they would be able to come to me and it would save me a fortune, but I can't," Chan said.
Karauria said they had been considering moving location for the past two to three years to a more suitable location to sell sushi.
"If we don't sell out by 2pm we have to get rid of food because the area is just dead after that and the only people you might see are people using the mall to cut from one street to the other."
