Kilda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Auckland's CBD should be at its brightest right now, but this Christmas season has exposed just how far the city has slipped. The former Smith and Coe's Building, once the center of Auckland's festive traditions, with its iconic window displays and enchanted forest, now sits dark Across the CBD, retail spending is down, site, vacancy rates are up, and the district has been plagued
by stalled developments and empty lots. But could a new life for Auckland be on the horizon. The long awaited city rail link is expected to open next year, and Seascape, the country's tallest residential tower, is resuming struction after a series of delays. Today on the Front Page ends at Herald, Property editor An Gibson joins us to unpack what's really happening in the heart of Auckland and whether we might
see a Christmas miracle for the city of Sales. First off, and anyone visiting Auckland's CBD can attest that there seems to be a lot of retail vacancies. You walk down to Queen Street, for example, and there's you know, every second shop's got a four lease sign in the window. But that's just anecdotal, that's just me walking down Queen Street. What does the data actually say?
In May, Baileys did a study of the CBD retail area of Auckland and what they found was that thirteen percent of it as vacant. Now that was actually down on what it had been it had been last year sixteen percent, but still, you know, in other parts of New Zealand it's not as high as that, and the
suburban areas of Auckland. A note that, for example, the vacancy red on the North Shore and retail is only five percent, West Auckland two point eight, the Auckland Metropolitan Area wider area four point three, in South Auckland only three point one. So the CBD's been really hard all the factors we know about, including COVID and CRL and many other combinations of hell for them.
Yeah, but in terms of have you been into the CBD lately, I mean we work kind of close to it, but really, have you gone to Queen Street to pick up something?
I have to go there yeah, but two months ago, maybe I wouldn't linger put it that way. It doesn't draw me, it doesn't attract me. I'm interested in it because I write about the buildings, and buildings are really important, but as a retail experience doesn't do it for me.
We spoke earlier this year and went through some of the major sites that are sitting empty in Auckland. Give me a bit of a refresh. What were they and anything changed within the last few months.
Yes. In my August Property inside a column, I wrote about the vacant lots, the buildings that are derelict or look abandoned, or where plans were hatched but never actually fulfilled. Places like the food Alley on Albert Street, which is an entire block where the old Yates building stood and that is owned by Singaporeans. Now it's all fenced off and it's just literally a vacant lot, and there are plans for that but they haven't come to any fruition.
So that hasn't changed. Those two big sites that have been vacant for nearly forty years now, so that's the Royal International Hotel on Elliott Street and the ex Auckland Star site in between Fort Street and Shortland Street. So I had contact James Callo from New Zealand Mortgages and Securities. They said to me, sat in line, we're getting closer to Suva than Sydney. Now, I thought that was actually
not a bad summation. Unfortunately, I identified about twelve big moribund, vacant, empty, undeveloped or plans not happening sites and so I haven't seen any big changes. There's been nothing that's occurred since I wrote that in August to those sites.
And that's a really good line as well, more like Suva than Sydney, because Auckland does kind of fancy itself as the Sydney of New Zealand, doesn't it. That's where you go for the big jobs, That's where you go for the big money, you know.
But when I say that, James Callow meant more like a Suva than Sydney, and meaning that in a bad way. He was really talking about the way, the direction or the way that the CBD is looking at the moment.
Yeah, and just because it's not suber is not ever going to be a thriving metropolis. New York's and your London's and your Sydney's. Obviously it's still a beautiful place, but it's just not what business people are aspiring to.
I suppose it was quite derogatory, quite a derogatory comment.
Yeah, just as a consumer, Black Friday felt a bit different this year. So on one hand, I was bombarded with the ads and the offers and up to sixty percent off et cetera, et cetera. But that's another podcast entirely, isn't it about how good Black Friday actually is nowadays? But I also thought, yeah, a lot of people complaining
about they're not being good enough deals. They're saying that they're not partaking this year at all because of the cost of living crisis coming up to Christmas as well. It's not really like it used to be. Has there been a reduction in retail spending overall?
Yes, well, you're right. Black Friday didn't turn out to be the great hope for retailers that it was anticipated to be. And in fact, the non food good spending was down this year six point two percent, so we're not seeing that big rebound. And this is this slightly moribun state of the economy at the moment, where the construction sector is really still in the downturn. We've got very high unemployment and I have a number of friends who are looking for jobs keeping an eye on what's
going on. I've tried to help some. It's really tough. I know one person who's applied for I think nearly eighty jobs now. And if you're on a winds benefit, you have to proactively seek work. You can't just do nothing, and so that's really tough.
You know.
Despite the fact that interest rates have come down, it hasn't fired up our economy. My colleaguelium Dan writes about green shirts, but as he wrote the other day, you can't eat green shoots, you know. So cost of living, high unemployment, low economic growth and low confidence is really serious issues for the New Zealand economy. And I think we're all hoping that twenty twenty six will be a better.
Year because we had the thrive in twenty twenty five or survive until twenty twenty five.
I wonder what.
Rhymes with twenty twenty six?
What can we kind oftically? And also was saying to Liam the other day, what is this big downturn in New Zealand? Called like we had the GFC and you know, we know about the I don't know the different downturns. I've usually got names the sharmarket pressure of the eighties. But I said to what was this one called? And
he said, it doesn't officially have a name. And then of course I consulted AI, as all good journalists do these days, and it said that New Zealand's economy was actually different to the economies of a lot of other countries, so there was no global name for this big downturn that we were in at the moment, because guess what, not global.
So you've come down today for the sale? How often did you come to Smith and Cohen? Probably definitely for Christmas, but alternative other times as well, you know, just whenever we were in the location. But it's just so sad that it's going. It's just the icon, isn't it. Being English and used to big old shops like this. New Zealand only has this one, so it's you know, it's really sad that it's going.
Going back to Queen Street. I'm going to take us back there. It's really going to miss Smith and Coey's this Christmas, isn't it.
It's very sad And even that center that was on the side of the old witch call spots. I miss him, yeah, on the corner of Queen of Victoria Street. Well, he was retired. His last year was evidently twenty nineteen. Now the amazing family, the Mensins, who are so influential in terms of development in Auckland, they funded Center I think
in about twenty fourteen for three years. But now he's somewhere down south I think because Heart of the city said that he was costing something like two hundred thousand dollars a year to put up. But back to Smith and Coey's right, so the board decided enough of Center. The board decided in duringe to sell that property. Well, so they've got two properties, They've got the Queen Street
one and one on Bolbone new Market. So they took the decision, talked to Peter Alexandra about this to actually sell it and they place the property with the number of agencies. Now we yet to hear of anything as
I understand it. The new Market property has sold. But there's a demolition specialist firm called rip it Out New Zealand and in mid July they were on social media picture removing fixtures and fittings in the lovely old ground floor where they sold so many cosmetics, and the wonderful men's clothing area, and you know all those great memories that I think we have of Smith and Coey's, which, as you say, such a begin institution in all right.
Yeah, So we don't know what the plans are for the Queen Street Smith and Colley's side, because it is an iconic building.
Theres people talk about things like maybe a language school or offices or actually a few people have mentioned the idea of converting it into apartments because I think it is a heritage building, so you know, not far away, John Love of Loving Company turned the original civic administration building into apartments. That's an eighteen level structure. The very expensive job, but very beautiful result. And John loved something
really interesting. He actually sought to patronize New Zealand businesses. So the windows come from thermosash and the appliances I think a Fisher and pikel and he went out to be a patriot and do something quite different in terms of that building. That's the largest office to residential conversion in New Zealand.
Do we just need to move on from this idea of needing to shop in the city or go into the CBD, or you know, just that mentality and just accept that city life has changed, it's not the hub that it used to be, and just deal with it.
Well, you know, I find it really interesting the Ikea opening and the big focus on that a regional hub, you know, Sylvia Park, and also the huge popularity of Costco Now. I think Nicola Willison announced when the cost Covers announced for Drury that there are two hundred and fifty thousand members of Costco in New Zealand. Now those
people are all paying sixty dollars annual subscription. So I think I think you're right to some extent, the CBD is not what it was, although we have to remember big precincts of it like Commercial Bay and Scott Pritchard and precinct properties who have done the most outstanding job of converting that area of the waterfront, but also like Peter Cooper and Cooper and Company and Matthew Cochran, the CEO with Britomart, which again is outstanding. So we have
that real mixture. You know, we're talking about Smith and Coe's, but if you go down near the waterfront and look at those two precincts. They're very different. You could be in a totally different city right when you're I don't know, walking past the beautiful Tiffany's store and Britomart and Tikomitt Dounga Square and you know, just outside Commercial Bay, they
are very beautiful. And also the CPO has been refurbished and that's owned by Cooper and co and facing Te committed Tonguel Square, and that's a very different experience, right, and it's somehow very indigenous with the way that they've integrated, you know, the use of native plants and landscaping, the hard landscaping, the colors, the design, the thoughtfulness and guess what, there's a giant Christmas tree down there. At the moment as I understand it, I've not seen it myself.
Oh that was going to be my next question. I know, maybe we should go down there. So in terms of that, that makes that what you say to me there and what I think of Brittemart and in Commercial Bay and the thoughtfulness behind that, that's what makes New Zealand special, right is that thoughtfulness and that patriotism to our roots and the design and architecture of it all. Do we need that for Queen Street.
Well, it's just extraordinary when you think. You know, precinct properties are billion dollars on Commercial Bay and by the way, they haven't finished. They've got two very big towers up to I think fifty six levels or more that will be the tallest in New Zealand of the book when they're book. And also Britamark Peter Cooper's vision of taking eighteen run down, gyrelict old industrial warehouses populated by pigeons and rats and a terrible straight and turning that into
the wonderful britom Ark precinct. What a vision that man has. Yes, so how can you spread that?
See?
I think what makes those two precincts really special is the waterfront location of them as well. And also you have to pay tribute to Auckland Transport and the vision
to convert that part of Key Street. So Key Street four Lane Highway was a thoroughfare very like I don't know, if you've been to San Francisco and got off the ferry there and tried to get into the Cebeach I have, yeah, right, so you walk across the motorway, right, Yeah, Well that's what Key Street used to be a little bit light, right, And then I think that the vision that occurred there is just outstanding and it really changes the city, and
it gives a completely different face to the city, for say, the visitors on cruise ships. You know, it really is outstanding what they've done. Wouldn't it be great if that could be moved further up the street, you say, But then you're getting away from the water work.
I know it's that hard cell that Queen Street is.
I need more jeanes?
Fine, let's go.
Slack awes.
So I never lend.
I've heard these ads for the City Rail Link, right, everyone's obviously getting excited for it opening next year, and I hear these ads being like, you could be at your home looking at a pair of jeans on your phone and be at Karangahabe Road in twenty minutes on the CRL, and I kind of my first reaction was, well, I can buy those jeans online, number one. Number two, Why would I go into the city at all when I can go and get those genes at Newmarket or
even Sylvia Park or something like that. But obviously there is this push to bring people back and that suggestion of yes you can, it's not long. You don't have to look around for parking, you don't have to pay for parking in the CBD because you've got the CRL and the convenience of it. Do you think that that's going to breathe new life into the city.
Well, I think we've got three things that are pretty amazing. We've got the CRL, We've got the New Zealand International Convention Center, and there is also the very big apartment to our seascape. Now take one of those alone. For example, with the CRL, the projection is nineteen thousand passengers in the peak hour per hour.
Wow.
That is slightly down from the original twenty seven thousand projection according to my colleague Bernard Oorsman, but still that number of people. So cities really thrived when there are lots of people. That's what they need to bring them alive. So I think your point's a really good one. Seascape
yet to be finished with. I don't know whether Icon Apparent it doesn't seem to have signed the contract with Shaundi Customs to come in there, but there are evidently people working on the site at the moment and the ends that ice see the media open day in late November and seeing inside there for the first time, and you know the number of people who could come in there. You know, they have got something like ninety five events
booked for next year alone. Wow, and you know something like fifteen thousand, ten des are expected to go to just fifteen of those. Now, the real beauty of what we're talking about is crl to whyhot A two station.
The central one is right beside scar City Albert Street with the scar City Grand actually faces the WAYHOA two station, and so then you've got a series of three blocks that Scarcity have connected up with walkways across the streets, so that's sort of flow and that connection and those numbers, we could really begin to see something change in the heart of Auckland there. And I do have to pay tribute to VIVBC and Heart of the City and all
that they are doing. It's a tough role. But you know, I really hope that CR and the inns of at ICC and these sort of changes in Auckland that it will revive the center of town. I mean, I think that is a reasonable expectation.
I would really hope.
So Actually, because I think about that convention center and the people and the amount of people that it will bring into Auckland, CBD. At the moment, though, would you be embarrassed for a group of Danish diplomats wanting to grab something for lunch or wanting to go and check out the local shopping scene and walking down to Queen Street from the International Convention Center.
I don't think we've got any reason to be embarrassed. I think some astonishing restaurants. And my favorite is actually El Brown's the Depot. I just have to say that because look, you can sit outside. I love the food. I've been going there for years. Right beneath you know, Skar City, right a block from the Convention Center, the sky City Hotel, Horizon Hotel with a new onlex bar is outstanding. Ahe by Ben Bailey down in Commercial Bay. I mean, these are phenomenal places that really do the
best to showcase I think New Zealand food. You know, you've got the Depot, which is pretty casual and I love that Kiwi style of it. And then Ben Bailey with fire and all the beauty of his open kitchen and the Cawi dishes and the beautiful tables. I mean, those are just two that I'm naming, but I'm not all embarrassed. I talk a couple of Irish friends up through the CBD midwinter on the wettest Sunday imaginable, and they loved walking up Albert Street because guess what on
Albert Street I didn't know this. There are a whole lot of boards explaining the history. So we walk quite quickly past the yates and ex food ali vacant lot. They didn't work on that because they're busy reading the boards up Albert Street. And just in the last little while we've also had I think at announced that the buses are back on Albert Street, right, so that's beginning to come alive after all that hell of the CRL. But I don't think that we should think that the
CROL construction was. It's it's just not personal to us. When they put the big Asian kilometer tram through the center of Sydney. I mean, my friends who retailers there had major conniptions. And I saw the tram, the light rail going being built up and down the GC and Queensland right, same thing. You know, businesses complaining. But at the end, guess what you can go from one end of the Gold Coast right up to meet the heavy rail and get into Brisbane. I mean the benefits of path.
I know the pain was extraordinary. I do appreciate that, but I also think that in terms of the provision of infrastructure, we need to be looking and thinking long term. I got to tell you the story when the Harbor Bridge was being built, and when it was finished in nineteen fifty nine, people said, why do we need a harbor bridge? There's any strawberry fields on the north shore back of vision.
So you've taken the diplomats out to dinner at our Browns, obviously had a beautiful cocktail on us and seeing the sunset on one of our beautiful rooftop bars. But then what if you take them down Queen Street or up Queen Street rather and past the same James Theater, past the Metro Center, past the Dead Smith and Coe's. What about that?
Not so good?
Not so good?
Not going on long way from the water gets worse, right, But what I'd have to say to you is that end of town is getting a number of large student accommodation blocks one three hundred million, and so there's a lot of students around there in the daytime, and those blocks are actually quite perfectly situated in that location, just oft Lawn Street actually between aut and the University of Auckland,
So there are positives. There is development going around there, just not on that just not so much on that big strip, although the Childs are also converting an office building into a hotel. Again, there is development occurring around there, not as dramatic obviously as the changes on the waterfront.
So we shouldn't say is Auckland dying or dead? We should say it isn't dead yet.
Auckland has been rebuilt and is being rebuilt, which is terribly exciting. The worst thing that can happen is just for people to leave and for me to be right about all the dead sites. I don't want to be right. I want to see the changes. I want to see the excitement and the joy of it all, and the coming alive and the people, just as you say, the Danes arriving here and searching for the beautiful restaurants.
Thanks for joining us, Anne.
Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzid Herald dot co dot enz The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.