Market told to find alternative venue

New plans for the Bethlehem Town Centre will impact on this carpark used for Bethlehem Lions Community Market.

Major changes are expected to be announced to Bethlehem Town Centre after the local Lions Club was told it needed to find a new venue for its popular community market.

The club's market organiser Alf Holst said March 1 will be the last market to be held on the town centre's carpark.

He said the club had been told that the area was required for an expansion. They were now negotiating for an alternative venue to avoid disrupting the market held every first and third Sunday.

Tauranga Harbour City Lions will also have to find a new venue for its annual book sale after being told the empty shop next to Smiths City would not be available for this year's sale. The club was now preparing to move its books out of the shop and into a garage behind the complex.

Town Centre manager Andrew Wadsworth was unable to comment until the official announcement was made on the plans for the shopping centre which still has empty shops more than seven years after it opened.

The changes follow the sale last year of AMP Capital Property Portfolio's 50 per cent stake in the shopping centre to Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board. The other 50 per cent was in family trust ownership.

The Bethlehem Lions Club was told about the middle of last year that it may have to find a new venue for its market after the Canadian purchase deal was announced in July, conditional on Overseas Investment Office approval.

The pension fund has purchased AMP Property Portfolio's 18 New Zealand properties valued at more than $1 billion, including Auckland's Botany Town Centre, Manukau Supa Centre, and Tower Centre, and Christchurch's Northwood Supa Centre. Mr Holst said the original plans for the section of carpark on which they were allowed to set up the market had been earmarked for a future building.

Bethlehem Lions immediate past president Doug Morris said the situation had been up in the air since the first indications last year that they might have to shift.

The club had been a "bit spoilt" to have an all-weather surface and they were grateful to have been allowed to use the carpark.

Lions book sale organiser Helen Hepburn said they were shifting books out of the empty shop next week after being told the shop would no longer be available. The club was now looking for an alternative venue for the sale.

The thousands of dollars raised by the annual book sale and markets were used to assist community organisations.