Botany Downs centre is the talk of the town

By ANNE GIBSON property editor

Being fairly short, Mike Geale sees a certain irony in the Botany Town Centre's shop-leasing catchcry, "Size does matter." Not only does he get the joke, he turns it on himself.

Neither Geale, Botany's development manager, nor the site boss, Mainzeal Construction's Martin Fahey, are giants, a matter reflected in their recent exchange of gifts. Fahey presented Geale with a tiny, ride-on toddler's scooter. Geale retorted with the gift of a gold-coloured baby's dummy to pacify the equally diminutive Fahey when he spits the proverbial at project meetings.

"We have a lot of fun out here," says Geale as he trudges through ankle-deep mud and vaults over metre-deep ditches back to his temporary offices in a Lockwood home on the site. "I'm not bothered by the rain either, because I couldn't shrink much more."

The bosses might be small but the centre isn't. They reckon Botany Town Centre is the largest shopping centre under development in Australasia.

Thirteen bulk retail stores - also known as large-format stores - open at the end of next month. The tenants include Bond & Bond, Noel Leeming, Hill & Stewart, Rebel Sport, Briscoes, PostiePlus, Baby Factory, Bed Factory, Guthrie Bowron, Harvey Furnishing, Arbuckles and Blockbuster. On top of those monsters are 136 specialty shops.

Come next Easter the rest of the centre will open, complete with a 20m-wide town-centre drive. Botany's developers have learned from the mistakes of Onehunga's about-turn with its main street, which converted from drive-through to pedestrian mall, then reverted to drive-through.

A town square, fountain lane, market square, glass-vaulted conservatory and pavilion are all aspects of the new centre, which aims to mimic a traditional town, mistakes and all. Windows don't quite match in the shop-fronts on the town-centre drive, awnings and verandas are at different angles, colours clash ever so slightly - "just like a real town," Geale proudly points out.

Workers are now laying carpet and installing ceiling tiles in Farmers' new Auckland flagship, its largest store in New Zealand. Time is so tight that the carpet is being coated with plastic to stop any of the finishing trades marking the floors. At one-and-a-half times the size of a rugby field, this Farmers will sell everything from couches to perfume.

Carparking will be well catered for with vast expanses of asphalt now being laid for the New World throngs. Around the back of New World, service retailers such as drycleaners will be stationed.

The only obstacle to the car is the design of a through-road to stop vehicles taking a shortcut from the new Te Irirangi Drive across to Chapel Rd. But for the rest of the centre, the car is king.

However, the emphasis at Botany has been on building a centre for people. Botany is challenging the entire concept of "big box" shopping malls. "A fruit salad of experiences for shoppers" is Geale's aim.

"You'll get the Vulcan Lane/High St experience, the town square experience, the large-store experience."

Blurb1: The first stage of the $180 million Botany Downs shopping centre is about to open. Property editor

Anne Gibson spent a morning with the vertically challenged folk building it.


Caption1: rrMAN ABOUT TOWN: Mismatched shop-fronts and a town square are part of the people-friendly plan, says Botany Town Centre development manager Mike Geale. HERALD PICTURE /

rlPETER MEECHAM

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fxdrop,5,100 B EING fairly short, Mike Geale sees a certain irony in the Botany Town Centre's shop-leasing catchcry, "Size does matter." Not only does he get the joke, he turns it on himself.

Neither Geale, Botany's development manager, nor the site boss, Mainzeal Construction's Martin Fahey, are giants, a matter reflected in their recent exchange of gifts. Fahey presented Geale with a tiny, ride-on toddler's scooter. Geale retorted with the gift of a gold-coloured baby's dummy to pacify the equally diminutive Fahey when he spits the proverbial at project meetings.

"We have a lot of fun out here," says Geale as he trudges through ankle-deep mud and vaults over metre-deep ditches back to his temporary offices in a Lockwood home on the site. "I'm not bothered by the rain either, because I couldn't shrink much more."

The bosses might be small but the centre isn't. They reckon Botany Town Centre is the largest shopping centre under development in Australasia.

Thirteen bulk retail stores - also known as large-format stores - open at the end of next month. The tenants include Bond & Bond, Noel Leeming, Hill & Stewart, Rebel Sport, Briscoes, PostiePlus, Baby Factory, Bed Factory, Guthrie Bowron, Harvey Furnishing, Arbuckles and Blockbuster. On top of those monsters are 136 specialty shops.

Come next Easter the rest of the centre will open, complete with a 20m-wide town-centre drive. Botany's developers have learned from the mistakes of Onehunga's about-turn with its main street, which converted from drive-through to pedestrian mall, then reverted to drive-through.

A town square, fountain lane, market square, glass-vaulted conservatory and pavilion are all aspects of the new centre, which aims to mimic a traditional town, mistakes and all. Windows don't quite match in the shop-fronts on the town-centre drive, awnings and verandas are at different angles, colours clash ever so slightly - "just like a real town," Geale proudly points out.

Workers are now laying carpet and installing ceiling tiles in Farmers' new Auckland flagship, its largest store in New Zealand. Time is so tight that the carpet is being coated with plastic to stop any of the finishing trades marking the floors. At one-and-a-half times the size of a rugby field, this Farmers will sell everything from couches to perfume.

Carparking will be well catered for with vast expanses of asphalt now being laid for the New World throngs. Around the back of New World, service retailers such as drycleaners will be stationed.

The only obstacle to the car is the design of a through-road to stop vehicles taking a shortcut from the new Te Irirangi Drive across to Chapel Rd. But for the rest of the centre, the car is king.

However, the emphasis at Botany has been on building a centre for people. Botany is challenging the entire concept of "big box" shopping malls. "A fruit salad of experiences for shoppers" is Geale's aim.

"You'll get the Vulcan Lane/High St experience, the town square experience, the large-store experience."