$250m goods storage warehouses going up at Drury South Crossing sites

Plans for the new Cardinal Logistics building at Drury. Photo / supplied

New Auckland dry food and retail goods warehouses worth around $250 million are earmarked for a 9.8ha south Auckland site where construction work started before Christmas.

Stephen Hughes, chief executive of Drury South Crossing, said two logistics firms were developing buildings to that value.

Construction of the first building started in November but more work is due to begin soon, he said.

Kris Webster, a director of Sorted Logistics, said that company planned three new Drury buildings with a combined floor area of 28,000sq m. Dry food and retail goods would be stored within the structures, he said today.

Construction will start either later this year or early next and Calder Stewart has won the main contract, Webster said.

Sorted has also developed two new buildings on Tidal Rd, Māngere recently. One was opened in December and the second will open this May, Webster said.

"The new Drury buildings will be for new growth because there's more and more demand for storage and logistics," Webster said.

Plans for the new Sorted Logistics building at Drury South. Photo / supplied

Tony Gorton, managing director of Cardinal Logistics, said construction of one new building with a floor area of 3.7ha or 37,000sq m was under way.

"Everything in your cupboard will be in that new building: toilet paper, canned salmon, Griffins, Eta goods - it will be stored on the premises.

"This is for grocery and grocery-related products. The head contractor is Hayden & Rollett. Work started at the beginning of November," Gorton said.

The new warehouse will be the ninth building Hayden & Rollett has built for Cardinal.

Earthworks are now underway for the warehouse expected to be finished next May.

Drury South was chosen due to it being close to transport connections.

"They call it the magic triangle between Auckland, Tauranga and Hamilton," he said.

"It's hard to buy land elsewhere. It's either at the start or end of the magic triangle. It's easier to go south than north. This is why we start really early at 6 am and get the trucks on the road then," Gorton said.

Hughes said the projects were due to be completed in around two years.

The warehouse sites did not neighbour each other but were within about half a kilometre of each other, Hughes said.

Drury South Crossing is owned by Stevenson Group which has a 20-year plan to develop a greenfields site of more than 361ha.

The warehouses are planned on sites with new roads whose names had not yet been decided on Hughes said. Around 200 people are expected to work in the warehouses.

"We're in year 15 now," Hughes said of the 20-year plan.

"There's a lot of preparation and plans changes which have gone on. Our side is nearly finished in terms of delivering all the land within the next five years and then the building will continue beyond that," Hughes said.

Foodstuffs last year opened a new 77,500sq m ambient distribution centre which has the largest footprint of any building in this country.

The 7.7ha centre where 350 people work stands beside the new 9000sq m headquarters or support office where around 950 people work on the same site at 35 The Landing Drive.

Chris Quin, Foodstuffs North Island chief executive, said two new buildings and the site at Māngere had been leased for 30 years from Auckland Airport.

John Dakin, Goodman Property Trust chief executive, confirmed at the time that a building with a 7.7ha footprint would be this country's largest.

The trust's largest building is its 52,000sq m Linfox distribution centre, also at Māngere. The Sistema building nearby is around 60,000sq m.