Ikea’s first NZ store: Watch drone footage as cranes go up, buildings about to rise

Enabling works at the site of New Zealand’s first Ikea have been under way since the winter, steel framing for the Swedish outlet’s new building will soon rise, a tower and a crawler crane are on site and in the meantime, the business has been studying us in our homes.

Fabian Winterbine, Ikea’s expansion manager for Australasia and New Zealand, told the Herald yesterday how much progress had been made on the Auckland site.

“It’s all happening. The cranes will start installing the first of our steel columns to support the building structure and its exterior walls next month. A lot of work has been done already. All the civil works are pretty much completed. We’ve been working closely with Kiwi Property Group. They were clearing the site, while Naylor Love was doing all our civil and piling work,” Winterbine said.

Those processes occurred simultaneously last year.

A fixed tower crane and a crawler crane are now on site, ready to hoist building materials into place as the new Ikea store rises in Mt Wellington. Photo / Carson Bluck

Exterior building walls would rise soon and were like an insulated sandwich panel that came complete with the eye-catching blue cladding, which is the distinctive Ikea store colour.

The base or floors would be concrete on steel, he said.

“Most of the stores are made like this, or something similar,” Winterbine said.

All up, 500 piles had been sunk into the ground, the depths varying across the site. Some of those are 40-50 metres into the ground.

Opening in mid-to-late 2025 was still the target “and we’re still on track. We’re six to seven months in from groundbreaking so we’re very happy about progress with the new store”, Winterbine said.

How Ikea is planned to look at Sylvia Park, Mt Wellington. Photo / Kiwi Property Group

Three tower cranes would soon be erected on the site to lift heavy equipment into place to the building, developed to a high seismic rating.

“All deep civil drainage and horizontal foundations are now completed, along with the design for the store, which has been awarded the NZ Green Building Council five-star rating, based on its plans,” Winterbine said.

New Herald photos and drone footage show progress on the site where piling is under way, trenches have been dug, earthmoving equipment is being used and a Dominion Constructors red crawler crane is working alongside a towering white Naylor Love luffing crane.

In June, Mirja Viinanen, Ikea NZ and Australia chief executive and chief sustainability officer, announced construction had started at 10 Clemow Dr, Mt Wellington.

The retailer is buying that land from Kiwi Property Group. The site is between the railway line and Sylvia Park, on the Carbine Rd side, so across the railway line from the big mall.

A traditional big, blue box large-format store of 34,000sq m is being built to sell the latest design and home furnishing.

Naylor Love was appointed construction project manager to oversee building the store, designed by Australian architects to standards there. That builder has also been head contractor on many recent projects from Kiwi.

That same builder has for years been working on the earthquake-damaged Christ Church Cathedral, but has also built two Sylvia Park office towers.

In May, Kiwi Property will open Resido, also built by Naylor Love, a $200 million scheme to bring 295 new apartments to a site right beside the mall.

Those units in three blocks up to 12 levels tall will be permanently rented in a concept relatively new to New Zealand - build to rent.

Never before has a listed landlord like Kiwi Property Group owned residential property on a large scale, or built permanent rental homes.

Last decade, chief executive Clive Mackenzie vowed to switch the business into the residential market, seeing huge opportunities to expand Sylvia Park into a new live/work/play hub, all with its own railway station and bus depot.

The Ikea building site, with The Warehouse and Farmers stores shown behind at Sylvia Park. Naylor Love is building the new store and has cranes on site. Photo / Carson Bluck

Since the winter, Naylor Love has been on the site earmarked for the purpose-built three-level 3.2ha Ikea warehouse, preparing the ground for that new structure. Soon, above-ground progress will be visible once the steel formwork begins to rise.

Although there’s no sign of the building coming out of the ground yet, that’s because it’s so big that all the work has been below ground for months, with giant pile-driving rigs on the site forming the foundations.

Steel reinforcing bars will soon be laid to increase the tensile strength of concrete flooring as that’s poured.

Trenches have been fenced with orange safety mesh and rebar tops have been capped in yellow cones to keep workers safe.

An orange crawler crane from Dominion Constructors is one of the two largest pieces of equipment on the Ikea site in Mt Wellington. Photo / Carlson Bluck

Steel plates, piles of timber, traffic cones, portable toilets, formwork and platforms, a bright yellow CAT digger, bridges over trenches, rolls of blue pipe delivering water mains to the site, particularly around the perimeter fences, are all signs of progress.

The builder has at least one blue container on the land for equipment storage.

The property is fully fenced to comply with the law, which demands site and public safety.

10 Clemow Dr, Mt Wellington is where the new Ikea is being built. This image was generated by land vendor Kiwi Property after the Overseas Investment Office granted consent in 2022. LFR = large format retail. Photo / Kiwi Property Group

The Overseas Investment Office granted Netherlands-owned Ikea New Zealand consent on April 14, 2022, to buy the site for a secret amount. It was satisfied the property was not sensitive. That decision said the opening date for the new store would be this December. The pathway for consent was under the significant business assets and made no mention of Kiwi, saying instead the vendor identification that was “not applicable”.

Meanwhile, Ikea New Zealand is busy learning about life at home in this country.

The retailer was founded in Sweden in 1943, but now has 400-plus stores in about 60 countries.

Ikea: across the train line from Sylvia Park on the Carbine Rd side of the mall. The pink shaded area to the right indicates plans by Kiwi Property Group for large format retail to rise in Carbine Rd. Image / Kiwi Property Group

Executives from Ikea in Australia are expected to visit as work progresses and the opening draws nearer.

More updates will be issued by the business soon.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.