Bowling for Kerikeri

Not everyone wakes up in the morning and decides to create a bowling alley, a laser strike facility, a café, bar and restaurant and nine retail shops. But Gary Greenwood from
Kerikeri says he likes a challenge.

It sounds like a vast understatement even if he comes with project development experience and, as he was about to discover when formulating plans for the Waipapa development, he still had things to learn. The first and arguably the harshest lesson was that the Far North District Council were sticklers for bureaucratic rules and regulations with one Councillor going as far as saying she thought a bowling alley was 'too soon' for Kerikeri.

"Council said we needed to have 160 car park spaces which is 60 more than was there," says Gary Greenwood. "And they wanted $5,000 per car park to make it happen. That's $350,000 over and above the development fees. I felt like it was blackmail and they killed it."

That was six years ago. With Council under new management and the acting CEO publicly stating he wants Council to be 'business-friendly' have things changed? Mr Greenwood arranged a meeting with Mayor John Carter, CEO Colin Dale and Councillor Di Maxwell. They were keen for him to proceed and while there was talk of a flexible approach to the granting of various permissions, in reality Council couldn't readily comply with some requests. It stymied progress for a while but at least this time the project has been allowed to move forward.

Next up was a round table meeting with five of the Council team and The Klinac Lane development is back on track. The land has been purchased from Auckland property developers, plans have been drawn up and the colour scheme has been chosen.

In the meantime Gary Greenwood is out shopping for fittings and believe it or not one can buy a bowling alley almost off the shelf. He visited most of the bowling alleys in Auckland before choosing the Brunswick pack - which is essentially a turn-key supply. He says laser strike equipment is a bit harder to choose because there are so many options and the hardest of all to pick is the style of the children's play area. He has yet to make that decision although whatever he chooses he says must be 'homely and comfortable'. A café tenant has already been signed and the majority of the building materials will be supplied by Bunnings.

Harcourts in Kerikeri have been chosen to market for prospective tenants for the ground floor. The commercial agent handling that is Hayden Clarke who says the calibre of existing tenants will generate confidence in the development over the coming years.

"With Mitre 10 still retaining 8,980 square metres of land across the car park, the prospects for Waipapa are looking strong."

The anticipated time line will see the footings down this month and the bowling alley is expected to open in January 2015. It will be called Phat Choppies - named by Bradley, the 16-year-old son of the Greenwood family, and yes, there's another story in that name.