Stores including the historic Queen St building are set to close in 2025, with the loss of almost 250 jobs. Video / Corey Fleming / Chereè Kinnear
Property has been a hallmark of longevity for 144-year-old Auckland retail business Smith & Caughey’s which today announced it would be closing next year.
All up, the retailer’s two Auckland stores are valued at $53.5 million but what the future holds for buildings on the sites is uncertain.
A family company incorporated 124 years ago owns the flagship Queen St building where the retailer has its “Grande Dame” headquarters, selling cosmetics and men’s fashion on the ground floor, women’s fashion on the first floor and furnishings, kitchenware and its Bite Cafe on the top floor or second floor.
The entity which owns that distinct building is Smith & Caughey which Companies Office records show was incorporated on December 13, 1900.
Still today, it is that company which owns 253 Queen St in the heart of the golden mile, title records show.
Auckland Council rates information show 253-260 Queen St is valued at $40 million.
Smith & Caughey's, Queen St.
It has a footprint of 2946sq m but a floor area of more than one hectare: the multi-level retail hub with 13,239sq m which runs from Queen St backing onto Elliott St behind with entrances off footpaths on either side.
Annual rates on that title alone are $256,000/year, the council data shows.
In Newmarket, Smith & Caughey’s trades from the heart of that suburb at a site near the end of Remuera Rd: the distinctive premises at 225 Broadway.
And again, 225 Broadway is owned by that same old company - Smith & Caughey Ltd.
Council records show 219-225 Broadway is valued at $13.5m, has a land area of 1114sq m and a total floor area of 1846sq m. Rates there are $74,000/year.
The company Smith & Caughey is owned by Smith & Caughey Holdings whose registered office is at 253-261 Queen St. Smith & Caughey Holdings was only incorporated in June 1988.
Smith & Caughey Ltd directors are Epsom’s Peter John Alexander, St Heliers’ Matthew Andrew Lovelace Caughey, Missions Bay’s Philip Brian Ruxton Caughey and William Anthony Caughey, Epsom’s John Nicolas Elliott, Remuera’s Michael Howell Holloway and Dunedin’s Katherine Iris Milne.
But it wasn’t that Queen St property which got publicity connected to the retailer and front-footed by its boss in the last few years.
Andrew Caughey, Smith & Caughey former managing director, fronted a campaign in February 2020 for a trust founded by one of his ancestors to quit a valuable rest home site in Remuera, expected initially to go for around $100m but which eventually sold for less than that.
Back in 2020 when Andrew Caughey was chairman of the Caughey Preston Trust with photographs of Marianne Caughey in the background. Photo / Michael Craig
That Remuera property, valued then by the council at $100m, went up for sale following the Caughey Preston rest home’s closure just over two years ago.
Caughey is the great-great nephew of Irish migrant Marianne Caughey Smith-Preston, who started a drapery shop in Auckland in 1880 and whose legacy created the rest home.
When in 2020 the Herald met Caughey in the retailer’s Queen St offices to discuss that sale, he told of how he once used to get copies of the newspaper from its headquarters which for 152 years were further down Queen St for staff at his family’s firm.
The 3.1ha ex-Caughey Preston site: big plans proposed for the prime $90m site. Photo / Colliers
As a younger man, he was charged with fetching daily copies from the publisher for the Smith & Caughey people, he remembered then.
Then-Environment Minister David Parker and Te Mana Rauhi Taiao the Environmental Protection Authority were involved in the application to build a huge new retirement village at 17 Upland Rd between Ventnor Rd and Lucerne Rd, below Remuera Rd.
The schedule for the Remuera project said 185 apartments in 11 blocks up to 17m tall were proposed for the ex-Caughey Preston site.
A 58-bed hospital, underground car parking, lounge and dining areas, activity rooms, a health and wellness centre, a cinema and a gymnasium were also cited in plans lodged by HND Upland and St Andrew’s Village Trust.
Upland Road Retirement Village is the project’s name.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
