Co-owner Marty O'Donnell is looking for a new site, now that plans are in place to demolish Real Groovy's iconic building to make room for a multi-storey apartment block. Photo / Nick Reed
Co-owner Marty O'Donnell is looking for a new site, now that plans are in place to demolish Real Groovy's iconic building to make room for a multi-storey apartment block. Photo / Nick Reed
Plans are in place to demolish the building that houses New Zealand's best-known record store, Real Groovy, and replace it with a multi-storey apartment block - but it does not spell the end for the iconic enterprise.
Developers plan to raze the building - which has been home to Real Groovy's enormous collection of vinyl, CDs, DVDs, books and more for 25 years - with the intention of building a 226-unit apartment block with retail outlets on the ground floor.
A demolition application was approved by Auckland Council in April.
Design for the new apartment blocks set to replace Real Groovy. Graphic / Supplied
This week, images and text shared online showed an artist's impression of the development, which was advertised on off-the-plan realtor James Law Projects' website as being in "Auckland's premier shopping and entertainment precinct - the equivalent of Shanghai's Nanjing Road or Singapore's Orchard Road".
Apartments were advertised from $385,000.
But the owners of Real Groovy, which was established in Mt Eden in the 1980s, insisted it was not the end for the store - they are on the hunt for a new location.
"It could be bigger, it could be smaller," co-owner Marty O'Donnell said. "It's an opportunity - you can't stop change but you can manage it.
"We still want to carry the same range of music, movies, books, pop culture merchandise and other weird stuff, and we'll continue to grow the range of vinyl and turntables."
Collette Waaka, who has worked as a retail assistant at Real Groovy for about seven years, was not worried about moving, saying it had been done before.
"This is the best place to work, I'm pretty excited, actually."
She said it was not the location that made the store a great place, but the customers, the staff and the music they sold.
The Queen St building is currently owned by Webster Investments, and the family-owned business, co-directed by lawyer Donald Webster, has a conditional agreement to sell to property development company Conrad Properties.
Real Groovy was founded in 1981 by serial record store owner Chris Hart. Photo / Chris Gorman
Mr Webster said he had "mixed feelings" about passing on the property that his family had bought about 70 years ago and that had once housed his father's car dealership and workshop, Campbell Motors.
He said that before Campbell Motors was established, the building had housed a cabaret called Dixieland, and a few years after the motor business shut up shop, Real Groovy moved in.
Conrad Properties partner Ben Dearlove said the project was still "a work in progress" and was likely to be ready for a sales launch in a month. He did not want to release any information early.
Real Groovy was founded in 1981 by serial record store owner Chris Hart. It was moved to another location in Queen St a few years later, before settling in its current spot in 1991.
Mr Hart splurged $20,000 on the store's giant neon sign, which took seven years to pay off, and in 1996 Mr O'Donnell, whom he had known since the 1980s, bought into the business.
In 1999, Real Groovy opened stores in Wellington, then Christchurch and Dunedin. But the business nearly did not make it through 2008's global financial crisis. Mr Hart sold his home to help bail out the company.
It has since recovered, which Mr O'Donnell said was a "testament to the hard work and dedication of our staff, and the loyalty of our customers".
