Plans for “Intensification” at Lynn Mall and Sylvia Park
It seems plans are under way to upgrade two of our malls in Auckland. According to the NZ Herald, Kiwi Income Property Trust (who own Sylvia Park) are planning to upgrade their LynnMall site while beginning planning preparations for office and later residential ‘facilities’ at their Sylvia Park site.
From NZ Herald
Auckland mall expansion planned by Kiwi
5:00 AM Tuesday Aug 5, 2014 Anne Gibson
Country’s biggest listed landlord looks at adding entertainment precinct at LynnMall and offices at Sylvia Park.
Chris Gudgeon, chief executive of New Zealand’s biggest NZX listed landlord, the $2.2 billion Kiwi Income Property Trust, told of plans for the sites in a Herald video interview.
“We’re planning a dining lane and entertainment precinct and that’s part of what we do in retail these days is round out the offer to include dining and entertainment with traditional retail,” he said of LynnMall, where he forecast work could start next year.
“Within the confines of the land holding, we’ll build a new footprint to take cinema and the dining precinct,” he said, saying seven theatres and a $30 million-plus spend were likely.
Changes at Sylvia Park appear to be further away, with Kiwi eyeing the intensification site, now largely carparking.
Gudgeon told of new uses for the site in the video.
Work to upgrade West Auckland’s LynnMall could begin next year.
“The opportunity to buy new malls is very few and far between.
What we have is an organic growth opportunity to expand, improve what we already have. Sylvia Park is a town centre capable of taking office as well as residential. We would do the office. We wouldn’t necessarily do the residential but one day we might facilitate someone else doing residential,” he said, predicting the apartments could rise at the edge of the site in new buildings.
Gudgeon warned against assuming both plans would go ahead.
“We’re developing ideas and plans but it’s different from saying, ‘We’re about to, we’re starting, we’re definitely doing that’,” Gudgeon said. “At LynnMall, we’re developing plans, establishing tenant interest and pulling a proposal together. There’s nothing firm or definite but we’re excited about it and we’re working on it.
“We’re moving ahead with plans for the next stage of LynnMall and looking at a dining and movie precinct and we think that West Auckland catchment is under-served for those offers.”
This is good to see from KIPT in redeveloping and further developing their existing assets.
Below is a Google Earth shot of Sylvia Park
Sylvia Park (North is to the left of the image)
As you can see the site is dominantly covered in parking whether it be ground surface parking or multi-storey parking buildings. That said Sylvia Park is unique in the fact that you can park on the roof at the southern half of the complex.
However, I can see how KIPT would develop over their surface and even multi-storey car parking with office, residential and possibly even future retail over time. And with Sylvia Park having good road and rail access (Sylvia Park Station) the site can serve as a living example on how to develop a mall-centric Metropolitan Centre in the future. Other Metropolitan Centres that have malls as their centre points could follow KIPT’s example with Sylvia Park if they had the nous to do so. Unfortunately looking at further submissions that came in against my Unitary Plan Submission it seems Scentre (formally Westfield), DNZ and AMP who have retail complexes either at Albany, Manukau, Westgate, Botany and Silverdale are quite not there yet in “future” development as KIPT is looking at with Sylvia Park.
Looking at it from what we can see what KIPT is planning with Sylvia Park is something similar to what the Super Metropolitan Centres are designed to set out (although at larger and more intense scale still). It will be interesting to see how KIPT do develop Sylvia Park in the future.
One last thing on seeing what KIPT are looking at with Sylvia, I noticed Kiwi Income Property Trust did not submit against my Super Metropolitan Centre zone concepts in my Unitary Plan submission when the other mall or complex owners did. All I can say is interesting 😉
Talking Southern Auckland 