Sylvia Park
Encyclopedia
Sylvia Park is a large business park
and shopping centre
in the Auckland
, New Zealand suburb of Mount Wellington. Less commonly known, the area around the centre (which includes some residential and other commercial developments) is also called Sylvia Park (the centre takes its name from the area, not vice versa, but Sylvia Park is not officially a suburb). The area is located adjacent to two major interchanges of the Auckland Southern Motorway
- the South-Eastern Highway (which passes directly through the shopping centre on a viaduct) and Mount Wellington Highway.
Land and store space in the Sylvia Park development is let out to a wide variety of major retailers, with key tenants including The Warehouse Extra, Hoyts
Cinemas, Borders
bookstore, Dick Smith Powerhouse as well as the Pak'n Save
and Foodtown
supermarkets. In addition, the centre has franchises of all major New Zealand banks and a wide variety of other retailers. The centre employs approximately 2,500 staff, and was drawing about 12,000 shoppers at a time during the weekends of the 2007 winter months.
In a 2008 rating of New Zealand shopping centres by a retail expert group, Sylvia Park received four stars, the maximum rating, based on the criteria of amount of shopping area, economic performance, amenity and appeal as well as future growth prospects. Especially praised were the wide catchment of shoppers and the motorway accessibility.
built here in the late 19th century. It was the country residence of Sir Maurice O'Rourke, one of the first Speakers of the House. Sir Maurice used the land primarily for horse breeding. The house was demolished in the 1960s and the land given over to either industrial use or became part of the Mount Richmond public domain.
However, the land was at that stage zoned
for industrial
use by the Auckland City Council
. The developers asked the council to modify the district plan
to allow high-density commercial use, a change which the council supported, and drafted into 'Plan Change 4'. However, the plan change was opposed by the Ngati Maru
Iwi
authority, which represents Māori interests in the area. A December 2001 decision of the Environment Court confirmed the plan change. Demolition and construction began in 2004, with retail construction beginning in 2005.
on the notoriously busy Auckland Southern Motorway
as well as major arterial routes in the vicinity of the centre, including the South-Eastern & Mount Wellington Highways. Transit New Zealand
and SPBCL took the unusual step of recommending people postpone trips to the mall. As part of the conditions of being granted planning permission SPBCL was required to manage traffic flows to the site, and had the traffic jams continued would have faced an accelerated timetable for upgrading key roads. The congestion did force SPBCL to implement a traffic monitoring programme ahead of schedule. Stage Two of the development opened in August 2006 and expanded the fashion, beauty and food retailers of the centre.
In contrast to the initial interest, weekday retail sales were soon considered to be flagging, with the centre being nicknamed 'Spooky Park' by some. The owners noted that this did not extend to weekend sales, and that the centre had in the meantime gained during the weekdays as well.
), Borders bookstore, 45 new stores, as well as bars and restaurants.
When Stage Three opened, it brought to New Zealand 26 stores which were either new to New Zealand or did not yet have stores in shopping centres, including a Playboy
Style Boutique, Timberland
Store and General Issue.
Stage Four opened in June 2007, and finished the retail area of the centre, which now has 200 shops covering 6.5 ha of indoors space and is valued at NZ$450 million. Sylvia Park's reign as the largest New Zealand shopping centre was however short, with the opening of the larger Westfield Albany
on 1 November 2007, which has fewer stores (150 approx.), but covers a larger area. The Base in Hamilton is also larger than Sylvia Park with the July 2010 opening Te Awa mall development.
The opening of the relocated Sylvia Park Train Station
in July 2007, directly to the east of the shopping centre, as required by the resource consent of the centre, now links Sylvia Park to destinations along the Eastern Line with at least half-hourly frequency.
Business park
A business park or office park is an area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. All of the work that goes on is commercial, not industrial or residential....
and shopping centre
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
in the Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand suburb of Mount Wellington. Less commonly known, the area around the centre (which includes some residential and other commercial developments) is also called Sylvia Park (the centre takes its name from the area, not vice versa, but Sylvia Park is not officially a suburb). The area is located adjacent to two major interchanges of the Auckland Southern Motorway
Auckland Southern Motorway
The Auckland Southern Motorway is the major route south out of the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It is part of State Highway 1....
- the South-Eastern Highway (which passes directly through the shopping centre on a viaduct) and Mount Wellington Highway.
Land and store space in the Sylvia Park development is let out to a wide variety of major retailers, with key tenants including The Warehouse Extra, Hoyts
Hoyts
The Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
Cinemas, Borders
Borders Group
Borders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
bookstore, Dick Smith Powerhouse as well as the Pak'n Save
Pak'n Save
Pak'n Save is a New Zealand discount food warehouse chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative.Founded in 1985, Pak'n Save was the last of the five current major New Zealand supermarkets to be founded...
and Foodtown
Foodtown
| area_served =| key_people =| industry = Retail| products =| services =| market cap =| revenue =| operating_income =| net_income =| assets =| equity =| owner =...
supermarkets. In addition, the centre has franchises of all major New Zealand banks and a wide variety of other retailers. The centre employs approximately 2,500 staff, and was drawing about 12,000 shoppers at a time during the weekends of the 2007 winter months.
In a 2008 rating of New Zealand shopping centres by a retail expert group, Sylvia Park received four stars, the maximum rating, based on the criteria of amount of shopping area, economic performance, amenity and appeal as well as future growth prospects. Especially praised were the wide catchment of shoppers and the motorway accessibility.
Original site
The name Sylvia Park is from the large country house / stud farmStud (animal)
A stud animal is a registered animal retained for breeding. The terms for the male of a given animal species usually imply that the animal is entire—that is, not castrated—and therefore capable of siring offspring...
built here in the late 19th century. It was the country residence of Sir Maurice O'Rourke, one of the first Speakers of the House. Sir Maurice used the land primarily for horse breeding. The house was demolished in the 1960s and the land given over to either industrial use or became part of the Mount Richmond public domain.
Development
The development is owned by Sylvia Park Business Centre Ltd (SPBCL), a subsidiary of Kiwi Income Property Trust. The development is situated on 24 hectares of land, a large part of which is still to be developed as of the late 2000s. KIPT acquired the land in two transactions in 1995.However, the land was at that stage zoned
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
for industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
use by the Auckland City Council
Auckland City Council
Auckland City Council was the local government authority representing Auckland City, New Zealand, and was amalgamated into the Auckland Council on 1 November 2010. It was an elected body representing the 404,658 residents of the city...
. The developers asked the council to modify the district plan
District Plan
A District Plan is a statutory planning document of New Zealand's territorial authorities.Mainly covering land use/zoning questions, they have become required since the advent of the Resource Management Act 1991...
to allow high-density commercial use, a change which the council supported, and drafted into 'Plan Change 4'. However, the plan change was opposed by the Ngati Maru
Ngati Maru
Ngāti Maru is a Māori iwi of New Zealand. There are two iwi known as Ngati Maru, one based in Taranaki, the other based in Thames . These two iwi have a common ancestor in Hotunui who had three sons Marukopiri, Maruwharanui and Marutūāhu...
Iwi
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...
authority, which represents Māori interests in the area. A December 2001 decision of the Environment Court confirmed the plan change. Demolition and construction began in 2004, with retail construction beginning in 2005.
Opening issues
Stage One of the development opened to the public on 6 June 2006. The opening received nationwide television and radio coverage the day before, as the development is one of the largest in New Zealand. This resulted in a very high shopper turnout on the opening day, and despite planning by SPBCL, caused severe gridlockGridlock
The term gridlock is defined as "A state of severe road congestion arising when continuous queues of vehicles block an entire network of intersecting streets, bringing traffic in all directions to a complete standstill; a traffic jam of this kind." The term originates from a situation possible in...
on the notoriously busy Auckland Southern Motorway
Auckland Southern Motorway
The Auckland Southern Motorway is the major route south out of the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It is part of State Highway 1....
as well as major arterial routes in the vicinity of the centre, including the South-Eastern & Mount Wellington Highways. Transit New Zealand
Transit New Zealand
Transit New Zealand was, from 1989 to 2008, the New Zealand Crown entity responsible for operating and planning the New Zealand State Highway network...
and SPBCL took the unusual step of recommending people postpone trips to the mall. As part of the conditions of being granted planning permission SPBCL was required to manage traffic flows to the site, and had the traffic jams continued would have faced an accelerated timetable for upgrading key roads. The congestion did force SPBCL to implement a traffic monitoring programme ahead of schedule. Stage Two of the development opened in August 2006 and expanded the fashion, beauty and food retailers of the centre.
In contrast to the initial interest, weekday retail sales were soon considered to be flagging, with the centre being nicknamed 'Spooky Park' by some. The owners noted that this did not extend to weekend sales, and that the centre had in the meantime gained during the weekdays as well.
NZ's biggest mall
Stage Three was opened 29 March 2007, and included a cinema (along with the biggest 35 mm permanent movie screen in the world, according to the Guinness World RecordsGuinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...
), Borders bookstore, 45 new stores, as well as bars and restaurants.
When Stage Three opened, it brought to New Zealand 26 stores which were either new to New Zealand or did not yet have stores in shopping centres, including a Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
Style Boutique, Timberland
The Timberland Company
The Timberland Company is an American manufacturer and retailer of outdoors wear with a focus on footwear. Its three key locations are in Stratham, New Hampshire; Danville, Kentucky; and Ontario, California....
Store and General Issue.
Stage Four opened in June 2007, and finished the retail area of the centre, which now has 200 shops covering 6.5 ha of indoors space and is valued at NZ$450 million. Sylvia Park's reign as the largest New Zealand shopping centre was however short, with the opening of the larger Westfield Albany
Westfield Albany
Westfield Albany is a new shopping centre of the Westfield Group in Albany, New Zealand, opposite the Albany Lakes Civic Park. Once the last sections opened in April 2008, at 7 ha of indoor space , it became the largest shopping centre in New Zealand, eclipsing even recently opened Sylvia Park,...
on 1 November 2007, which has fewer stores (150 approx.), but covers a larger area. The Base in Hamilton is also larger than Sylvia Park with the July 2010 opening Te Awa mall development.
The opening of the relocated Sylvia Park Train Station
Sylvia Park Train Station
Sylvia Park train station is a railway station on the Eastern line of the passenger rail network in Auckland, New Zealand. It serves the recently opened Sylvia Park mall and the surrounding suburb of Mount Wellington.- New Station :...
in July 2007, directly to the east of the shopping centre, as required by the resource consent of the centre, now links Sylvia Park to destinations along the Eastern Line with at least half-hourly frequency.
Plans
The opening of Stage Five was planned for 2008 and to add NZ$ 200 million of office space in four separate buildings. Kiwi Income noted that it had always planned to develop offices around the perimeter of the centre, but had delayed this until the retail was starting to take off.Major stores
- The Warehouse Extra
- HoytsHoytsThe Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
Cinemas - BordersBorders GroupBorders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
- Dick Smith PowerhouseDick Smith ElectronicsDick Smith is an international electronics retailer, founded in 1968 by Richard "Dick" Smith. Today, it is a subsidiary of Woolworths Limited, incorporating Tandy, and the remaining Dick Smith Powerhouse Stores...
- Pak'n SavePak'n SavePak'n Save is a New Zealand discount food warehouse chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative.Founded in 1985, Pak'n Save was the last of the five current major New Zealand supermarkets to be founded...
- FoodtownFoodtown| area_served =| key_people =| industry = Retail| products =| services =| market cap =| revenue =| operating_income =| net_income =| assets =| equity =| owner =...
External links
- Sylvia Park (official centre website)
- Silvia Park, Auckland (development website of Kiwi Income Property Trust)