Shopping centre to double as expansion plan gets green light

The Team Reporter from The Press

A shopping centre in Christchurch’s northeast will more than double in size after the city council agreed to rezone a block of land next door.

The bulk-retail Homebase shopping centre, on Marshland Rd in Shirley, has about 15 stores including a Bunnings hardware barn, a car park, and a new supermarket about to be built.

Homebase owner Reefville Properties Ltd asked the council in mid-2020 to allow a plan change rezoning the 4.8 hectares next door, on the corner of Marshland Rd and QEII Drive (State Highway 74).

The company is owned by Christchurch brothers Glen and Max Percasky. The pair developed The Palms mall nearby in the 1990s, before selling it and building Homebase.

The Homebase expansion site is larger than the existing shopping centre and is now zoned for residential use. It is mostly vacant except for two houses.

The councillors’ decision agreed with a recommendation from its independent hearings panel, made following public submissions in 2020 and 2021.

It could still be appealed to the Environment Court.

Glen Percasky said they were very pleased with the approval, but it was too soon to say what shops would go on the corner block.

“We’ve got lots of ideas. We’ve put so much time and energy into this plan change, it would’ve been presumptuous to do anything until we knew we’d got it.”
Percasky confirmed large stores would be included, “along the same lines as Homebase”. He did not know when construction would begin.

He declined to say which operator would occupy the previously-approved supermarket, which will cover 4000 square metres and will be accessed by new traffic lights recently installed on Marshland Rd.

In a written submission as part of the rezoning application, Percasky said “the current size of Homebase is not large enough to attract the national and international retail tenants that are necessary for the long term”.

“In my opinion, the current zoning of the site does not appropriately reflect the commercial status of the area as a whole,” the submission said.

The hearings panel said it accepted there was an under-supply of large format retail in the north and east of Christchurch, compared to the south and central areas.

Housing expansion in the area has included the large Prestons subdivision just to the north.

In line with the hearing panel’s recommendation, the council attached conditions to the rezoning approval intended to reduce the effect of the expansion on The Palms.

They say the development must be staged, cannot add more than 20,000sqm of new retail floorspace, and cannot include clothing and footwear stores before 2031.

The Homebase expansion also must include a pedestrian and cycling link to the housing area to the west, and to Marshland Rd.

They bought up the land for expansion progressively, paying $3.6 million for the supermarket site, and $6.8m for the corner block.