Highbury Birkenhead shopping centre's re-development. Photo / Michael Craig
If Highbury Birkenhead is your local shopping centre, get ready for considerable changes.
Hong Kong/New York-based owners of that re-branded North Shore hilltop hub are spending $15 million on a grand makeover, now well advanced, planned to be open around Christmas.
A 200-seat family restaurant is being built, due to open later this year, two big-name national food outlets with drive-through stand-alone shops are being built. The food court is becoming more of a precinct and stairs and a lift have been built to give better access from the ground to the first level.
The mall has been a somewhat tired centre lately, with many shops vacant and its ex-Warehouse converted into a vaccination centre mid-pandemic but now re-tenanted.
It hasn’t had a lot of local love lately: “The whole place is a disaster,” wrote one customer on the mall’s own social media page. “While new construction is being built, the mall upstairs is almost empty,” complained another.
After 27 years of trading from there, Burger King shut on April 30. That, for many, was the final blow, one of the only reasons they said they were staying loyal to their local.
Richard James, national director of real estate management at Colliers, says new outlets will be open there soon, some before the end of this year. Jo McDonald, general manager of Strategic Property which is the project manager, named some of those.
They met the Herald at the site this week, to show off changes, now partly completed.
The 14,000sq m centre anchored by Countdown and with 600 car parks will look very different by late 2023/early 2024, they indicated.
Woodview Construction has part of the centre under wraps at the Highbury Bypass end.
You can’t see it yet, but behind the hoardings making the Highbury Bypass end of the mall extremely gloomy and dark are new floor-to-ceiling glazing to give great views of the Hauraki Gulf, Rangitoto, the wider Shore and city areas, showing off that hilltop location.
The overseas owners saw big untapped potential, James and McDonald said. They are driving its biggest makeovers in decades, seeking to embed it further in the community with more food and entertainment offerings as well as a big new lift at the Highbury Bypass end.
Changes began when the KFC was demolished, The Warehouse left and was replaced by entertainment hub Live Wire Birkenhead, with upstairs party rooms for kids and part of the carpark area was used for the new restaurant floorspace. Chemist Warehouse shifted into a larger-format store there last May.
McDonald said Live Wire was one of New Zealand’s biggest indoor entertainment venues, at 4500sq m, a local business founded by the Fraser brothers which offer indoor bowling, curling, an arcade, laser tag, virtual indoor cricket and an indoor playground. Customers were coming from across the Auckland Harbour Bridge to visit, McDonald said.
Negotiations are now underway for an operator to lease a new 200-seat family restaurant, to be open until 10pm, serving alcohol, with a wall of floor-to-ceiling glazing bringing in light and giving diners big views.
An older, small car park on the upper level has been converted into that restaurant area.
“The new tenancy has a garden bar area that will trade later into the evening and anchor our revamped food offer and will promote the evening trade at Highbury. This realises our initial goal of having a more modern dining area at the centre,” McDonald said.
Outside, at the flat corner site once occupied by KFC, two national big-name takeaways are being built, both to have drive-through areas and some car parking spaces: a new concept McDonald’s and a new concept KFC.
Those are being developed by each of the food business operators but once completed, Strand Trust will buy those buildings, James and McDonald said.
Architectural work on the scheme was done by retail specialists The Buchan Group with Cottee Parker Architects, she said.
Upstairs, at the top of the escalators from the indoor car park beside the mall, Burger Geek will open in what is to be an expanded food court, along with Maki Sushi, Me & Chef and others. Sal’s Authentic New York Pizza is already trading from the mall.
The centre has been rebranded Highbury Birkenhead, James said, to emphasise its local nature as well as retaining its more traditional name. The mall at the corner of the Highbury Bypass and Birkenhead Ave uses the logo “your meeting place”.
In 2018, the Herald reported that Strand Corporate Trustees had bought the mall for $40m from Mark Gunton’s NZ Retail Property Group. At that point, Strand was cited as only being Hong Kong investors and New York wasn’t cited.
“They own a number of buildings around New Zealand,” James said this week, adding that the business was keen to invest in this country rather than being a short-term investor
So what’s driving such confidence in the centre? Colliers said the core market of customers to visit was estimated to be 51,350 people in 2021 but is projected to rise to 61,450 people by 2038 based on a median projection of changes in the area. The mall is on the main arterial road only 2.5km from SH1 and 8km from the CBD.
Around 15,791 cars pass that centre daily.
“Highbury’s core economic market has a younger, educated and more affluent bias. This generates more spending potential and a higher propensity to spend more per person on retail goods and services,” Colliers said.
The area’s median household income is a healthy $105,000. Around 53 per cent of households have a $100,000-plus income plus 66 per cent of homes are owner/occupied, not rented - another pointer to wealth.
Plans are to upgrade the Mokoia Rd entrance to improve the street appeal and enhance visibility.
“Our vision - modern eateries, well-loved by locals who come to socialise and connect over great food,” Collier’s leasing material says.
“Refreshed and expanded food and dining precinct...move away from a traditional food court concept to a contemporary food precinct offering fresh and fast casual dining, shared eating spaces, enhanced lighting levels in interior space, natural light, daytime and evening offerings, custom-designed interior planting to regenerate the interior,” Colliers says.
John Gillon and Danielle Grant, of the Kaipātaki Local Board, welcomed changes.
“We are pleased with the redevelopment of Highbury and the ongoing working relationship with the Birkenhead Village business association. The expanded hospitality offering will enhance Birkenhead as a significant food destination on the North Shore. A modern food-hall dining experience is something our community has been requesting for a long time,” they said.
It was exciting to see a number of significant anchor tenants coming into the area. They would provide greater variety in the retail sector.
“We are keen to see the completion and look forward to the opening in the coming months,” they said.
Nick Kearney, a former local board area and solicitor who lives in the area, says the centre has considerable potential and he’s glad that’s being recognised and realised.
Other large healthcare hubs near the site include Southern Cross and Auckland Eye.