Auckland is in line for more upmarket stores as developers circle almost a hectare of scrub land opposite one of the country’s biggest shopping malls.
The recent sale of 1455sqm of land at 8-10 Clovernook Road, Newmarket, has raised expectations of new retail offerings in the suburb.
The plot is one of several sites under the SH1 flyover being sold off by the Crown and was picked up for an undisclosed price at the end of last year after almost two years on the market.
Ray White Commercial director Finn Hurst, who brokered the deal, was tight-lipped about the identity of the buyers but revealed they were in the automotive industry.
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“They are trying to keep things a little bit under the radar,” he said.
The land is close to more than a dozen car dealers in the suburb, including Mercedes-Benz, Auckland City BMW and Continental Cars, which sells luxury vehicles.
Hurst said the 887sqm of land at neighbouring 6 Clovernook Road sold at the end of 2022 to a furniture retailer. “They’re currently working through designs and things to build a showroom on site. They’re relocating their business from another Auckland suburb,” he told OneRoof.
Hurst is marketing other plots within the near-one hectare parcel, including 1 Edgerley Avenue and 5 and 9 Edgerley Avenue, and he has a 1842sqm plot at 20-22 Clovernook Road currently under contract. “There’s a developer looking at various schemes for those sections at the moment,” he said.
“Being opposite [Westfield] is pretty significant, and that’s what’s attractive to a lot of people,” he said.
The $790 million redevelopment of Westfield Newmarket by Scentre Group before Covid struck has re-invigorated the retail suburb, with the mall built to house more than 200 shops and 2800 car parks.
The mall itself has a rateable value of $1.15 billion, highlighting the potential value of the land around it.
Westfield Newmarket is one of New Zealand's busiest shopping malls. Photo / New Zealand Herald
However, the sales process for Hurst’s neighbouring plots has been slow for a number of reasons. One is that the land was taken from private owners under the Public Works Act and by law must first be offered back to the former owners and then local iwi – sometimes more than once if an offer is less than the valuation.
“They are complicated sites,” Hurst said.
The agent noted that more sites in the block were set to hit the market. “There’s a parcel of central landlocked land, which [the Crown] will offer to the adjoining owners once we’ve sold 5 and 9 Edgerley.”
He is also marketing other commercial sites in the upmarket shopping district. “There are landholdings of scale that we’re working on off-market,” he said. “They’re mostly brownfield with a little bit of vacant land as well. There’s a bit of confidentiality around them, but we are fairly advanced in terms of conversations with purchasers and vendors. Until they are unconditional we can’t really talk about them.”
He said there has been a noticeable pickup in interest in relation to bare land from developers across Auckland. Hurst said he had recently sold Crown land adjacent to the Southwestern Motorway [State Highway 20] in Hendon Avenue, Mt Albert, which was settled at the very end of January. A developer had bought those sites with the intention of building nine townhouses, said Hurst.
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