Watch: First look inside New World Mt Albert after $6m expansion

New World Mt Albert opens next Tuesday on the site of a shop devastated in last year's Auckland Anniversary weekend floods. Photo / Michael Craig

A $6 million refurbishment and expansion of the former Fresh Collective Alberton has prepared the supermarket for opening as New World Mt Albert next Tuesday, with about 10,000 customer visits a week expected.

Foodstuffs North Island retail and property general manager Lindsay Rowles, property head Nick Hanson and new store owner Sam Wanklyn showed off the larger store at 1 Alberton Ave off New North Rd.

Dark ceilings, polished concrete floor and no more lino: inside New World Mt Albert, which opens on October 8. Photo / Michael Craig

The 672sq m store was expanded to 844sq m when Foodstuffs agreed to lease the neighbouring S.R. Sal Rose Italian Restaurant & Bar from landlord KT Wang Family Trust.

A wall between the pizza restaurant and the supermarket was knocked down so the popular local supermarket could be expanded.

Rowles said the store, flooded last January, had been shut since and was the last Fresh Collective in a brand that is no longer operating.

Lindsay Rowles, of Foodstuffs North Island, inside the new store, which opens on October 8. Photo / Michael Craig

Features of the new store are:

• Four self-service checkouts and two staffed checkouts;
• New cabinets, new shelving, storage across all six aisles;
• New mezzanine floor, expanded when pizza shop vacated;
• 24 car parks for customers, all at street level out the front;
• Exposed ceilings are now painted black, polished concrete floors;
• LED strip lighting, wallboards removed to expose block walls.

Preparing for the October 8 opening of New World Mt Albert. Photo / Michael Craig

Hanson said only two days after last January’s floods, customers were knocking on the door asking when the store would reopen, “and they were asking what they could do to help”.

Sam Wanklyn owned and operated Gisborne’s Four Square Wainui Rd before moving north to run the new Mt Albert store.

He expects about 10,000 customer visits a week, offering 30 trolleys but also saying many walk-in basket-carrying customers will visit.

“There were close to 9000 customer visits a week at the Four Square,” he said of the popular Gisborne store.

New World Mt Albert is expecting 10,000 customer visits a week. Photo / Michael Craig

Ready-made roast chicken and beef meals for one or two people will be a distinctive feature of the new deli, catering to local demand, Wanklyn said.

He plans to make links with local schools, especially Mt Albert Grammar School and Marist School Mt Albert, but also the YMCA.

About 56 staff would work in the store, with the building work completed by locally owned Dominion Constructors in a seven-month programme.

New World Mt Albert has 24 car parks for customers, all at street level. Photo / Michael Craig

Beard Brothers, of Hawke’s Bay, will run a free sausage sizzle outside the store from 10am next Tuesday.

Wanklyn said a dawn blessing was planned for 6am that day, then the doors would reopen to customers after 21 months shut.

Extensive glazing along the north front face meant fresh produce would be placed further into the store than at some other supermarkets, he said.

Rowles said the shop first opened in 1975 as a New World then in the 1990s, when the Pak’nSave Mt Albert opened, it had been independently owned.

In 2006, it became Four Square and in 2017 was rebranded Fresh Collective.

He told how water had flooded the store at almost hip height, ruining all the produce and forcing closure.

New World Mt Albert at 1 Alberton Ave will be open seven days a week, 7am to 9pm.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.