Sylvia Park

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Sylvia Park is a large commercial property development and shopping mall in the Auckland, New Zealand suburb of Mount Wellington. It is located adjacent to two major interchanges of the Southern Motorway - the South-Eastern Highway (which passes directly through the shopping centre on a viaduct) and Mount Wellington Highway.

1 Ownership, Zoning & Development
2 Opening Issues
3 Becoming New Zealand's Biggest Mall
4 Future Plans
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Ownership, Zoning & Development

The development is owned by Sylvia Park Business Centre Ltd (SPBCL), a subsidiary of Kiwi Income Property Trust. The Sylvia Park development is situated on 24 hectares of land. KIPT acquired the land in two transactions, on October 1995 and June 24. 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 "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 in beginning 2005.

[edit] Opening Issues

Stage One of the development opened to the public on June 6, 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 gridlock on the notoriously busy Southern Motorway as well as major arterial routes in the vicinity of the centre, including the South-Eastern & Mount Wellington Highways. Transit and SPBCL have taken the unusual step of recommending people postpone trips to the mall^[1]. SPBCL will be required to start a planned traffic monitoring programme ahead of time and may be required to upgrade key roads if trigger points are reached^[2]. Stage Two of the development opened in August 2006 and expanded the fashion, beauty and food retailers of the centre.

[edit] Becoming New Zealand's Biggest Mall

Stage Three was opened 29 March 2007, and included a cinema (along with the biggest 35mm movie screen in the world, according to Guinness World Records^[3]), Borders bookstore, 45 new stores, as well as bars and restaurants. ^[4].

Land on the Sylvia Park development is let out to major retailers. Key retailers include The Warehouse Extra, Hoyts Cinemas, Borders, Dick Smith Powerhouse, Pak'n Save and Foodtown, all major New Zealand banks, food retailers, and a wide variety of other retailers.

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^[5] including a Playboy Style Boutique, Timberland Store and General Issue.

[edit] Future Plans

Stages Four and Five are due to open in 2007 and 2008 respectively. These stages will bring additional stores and facilities to the mall, as well as office space in four separate buildings. Future transport plans for the site include a railway station to be built on the railway line behind the shopping centre. This, along with a bus terminal and the fact that the development is located by a major road junction will make Sylvia Park easily accessible by both private and public forms of transport from the majority of Auckland's central, eastern and southern suburbs.