Wanganui's Eastside Shopping Centre has gained two new shops.
Businesses have come and gone from the centre in recent years - two butcher shops, a cafe and a vege shop have gone. One empty building has been turned into premises for Firewatch Wanganui Ltd and Sandy Turner opened her Handmaid shop
late last year.
Most recently Katrina Archer opened Essence Hair Design and Beauty in Julie Grieg's former studio/gallery and liquor-sellers Sanjeev Nauhria and wife Kavita have a nine-year lease on the former Dublin Dealers building.
That still leaves five empty shops, and Miss Archer said more occupants were needed.
She's only 23 and her new business opened on April 26.
She got her hairdresser training in Taihape and at UCOL, and said she did some of her work experience in the shop she's using now, but under a former owner.
The building belongs to her grandparents, Theo and Viv Perry, the current lessees of Bushy Park Homestead. Miss Archer said they planned to open a cafe in the former Dee Cafe premises next door, which they also own.
She has one staff member, hairdresser Carrie Loveridge, and plans to rent space to a nail technician and beauty therapist in adjoining rooms.
It took Miss Archer two months to paint the interior, knock a wall out and lay a new floor for her business. Before it opened she worked for other salons, and was a full-time mum.
The business is all hers and fulfils a long dream.
"I've been wanting to do it forever, but I didn't think the opportunity would ever come along."
Unlike her, Sanjeev Nauhria has already owned a business - a dairy in Hastings.
He liked the empty building in Wanganui East for its size and the good visibility inside and out, and he liked it being part of a shopping centre that brought foot traffic.
He opened on Wednesday and said it seemed busy enough.
He's not allowed to sell alcohol from 11 to 11.50am and 3 to 3.30pm because Wanganui Girls' College is just down the road. He had no problem with the restrictions, but hoped Wanganui District Council would lift them if it saw he was running a good business.
