By the time you read this, a New World will have arrived. A supermarket, that is. The news that construction was to begin was reported 18 months ago by Stuff, under the bracing headline, “This Auckland town centre is a bit crap, but that could soon change”.
More recently, it was announced the place would be opening ahead of schedule, to pick up some of the slack (and employ some of the staff) from New World’s Victoria Park branch, in central Auckland, which burnt down in June and will be closed for some time.
The people of Point Chevalier are, to judge by the comments on the new supermarket’s Facebook page, more than ready. “I have waited so long for this to open and I am so excited,” declared one resident. “At last we will have a real supermarket.”
We have laboured for so long in the knowledge that we have been buying our groceries at the city’s most shabby Woolworths, a tiny shed of a place that first opened its doors in 1973 as part of the long-gone 3 Guys chain, and has been both a Foodtown and a Countdown since it was acquired by Progressive Enterprises in 1985.
The staff are decent folk and they’ve endured a lot since the closure of the Point Chevalier Library – an unfixable leaky building – set off a public-order problem in the little town square between it and the supermarket. At one point, thugs were coming in from outside the area, filling up trolleys with expensive booze and walking out – daring anyone to stop them.
There is now a permanent security guard and less daylight crime. Facebook commenters have been inquiring as to New World’s security plans.
Ironically, the rise of the big new retail citadel has played its role in the scruffy incumbent’s troubles. The New World is on land acquired, in part, from the RSA, in a deal that seemed to go very poorly for the RSA. But the supermarket’s owner, Foodstuffs, did not buy the whole block, and next to the shiny new streetfront is a cluster of derelict, graffiti-covered buildings that are, basically, a crime nest.
The derelict buildings have been owned since 2022 by a company called Hobson One, which was granted consents for a grand eight-storey building early in 2023 – then tried to sell the site only four months later. The council has ordered the company to demolish one of the old buildings, deemed dangerous, but its owner, Cobe Guo, has yet to do so.
He’s a public enemy in these parts.Someone gamely suggested opposing New World’s liquor licence but didn’t get many takers. But should I buy my fancy craft beer there, or stay loyal to the local bottlestore, where the owner plays Hindu devotional chants in the morning? Will I still have need to pop into Point Chev Fresh, the somewhat disorderly grocer I came to love so much during the pandemic that I made it the subject of my talk at an arts event on the theme “walking during lockdown”?
When we talk about the need for diversity and competition in supermarket retail, we often forget the places we can walk to; the ones small enough to have short supply chains and odd bargains that are unavailable elsewhere.
Foodstuffs has made an effort to interest us in the personal story of the chap who will be operating its Pt Chevalier business, but it’s not really the same thing.
The weather forecast is fine for opening day and we will walk eagerly past the crack den and whatever darkness it holds, or drive down into the big new car park. We might fret about the good folk who work at the Woolworths. But we’ll hold our heads high, buoyed in the knowledge that we are demonstrably a bit less crap.
