Property Insider: Graeme Hart makes progress in Auckland industrial market with Wiri build; are all 63,000 retirement village residents happy?
Industrial trumps commercial and retail for development pace right now in a list of mega-Auckland projects out this month. One of New Zealand’s wealthiest men is tapping that rich vein.
About 63,000 people live at retirement village properties but not a single complaint has been published from them this year. Why?
Graeme Hart is busy on the South Auckland industrial property scene, making his move into the sector at a perfect time when buildings are scarce and demand is hot.
Hart’s Fernbrook Properties, owned by his Rank Group, is well underway building a new three-building warehouse/logistics hub on a big greenfields site at Wiri.
Federal Construction has framing up on 31 Prices Rd near Auckland Airport.
Hart, ranked as New Zealand’s second-richest man in the NBR Rich List, is catering to this fastest-growing sector of the property market.
He is taking advantage of industrial property, leading the development sector.
Extremely low vacancies and high demand have been highlighted lately.
A CBRE report on 2025 vacancies was released in February, tracking the market.
It said secondary Auckland CBD office space had an enormous 25.2% vacancy rate but prime industrial space was only 2.3% vacant.
“A key market trend of 2025 is the continued consolidation of logistics companies from older, lower-quality buildings, coupled with increasing adoption of third-party logistics by some businesses,” CBRE said.
The overall prime net effective average industrial rent was $193/sq m. East Tāmaki, Wiri, Mt Wellington and Penrose command the highest net rents in the sector.
Hart’s buildings are now known only as PR (Prices Rd) 1, 2 and 3.
New research from CBRE out this month named the project as one of Auckland’s largest.
Top 10 industrial projects named by CBRE
CBRE said Wiri, the airport corridor and East Tāmaki are the three most active precincts for industrial development.
“In Wiri, James Kirkpatrick, Fernbrook and ESR are the only developers building warehouses, with a combined development size of over 140,000sq m, to date all without pre-commitment,” research from CBRE’s Zoltan Moricz and Roger Du found.
From Fernbrook, references to the buildings are the working titles:
In parallel to the construction of the tranche-one buildings, the final section of a realignment and upgrade of Prices Rd is also due to be completed.
That is to ease connections to Puhinui Rd at signalised intersections with Campana Rd and at Manukau Memorial Gardens and south to Roscommon Rd via McLaughlins Rd and Vogler Drive.
The National Business Review named Hart as New Zealand’s first billionaire on its rich list, which has now been running for 40 years.
Last year, his wealth was put at $12.1 billion, second only to Mat and Nick Mowbray at $20b.
On the Wiri project, marketing material showed JWA Architects of Shortland St designed the buildings.
In 2024, the Herald reported Synlait Milk leased a new twin-building development Fernbrook with 1.8ha of internal space at 9 Jerry Green St, Wiri.
One warehouse is 11,000sq m with 77 car parks, while its neighbour is 7000sq m with 50 car parks. A sub-lease is understood to be in place there.
Rhenus Logistics leased another Fernbrook building at 90 Pavilion Drive, Airport Oaks, Hart’s business says. Building two at the same address was leased to freight company Mainstream, Fernbrook’s site shows.
Retirement village residents okay?
The year is almost half over.
Yet we don’t have a single formal dispute decision published on the website of Te Ara Ahunga Ora the Retirement Commission.
Are 53,000 retirement village residents all so happy that not a single one took a battle to that level?
It seems more likely the existing law is highly deficient, given imminent plans to beef up the complaints system.
That could make for some interesting news stories.
Last year, only two disputes went that far.
The first case last year was a complaint brought by residents of a Christchurch retirement village, which was also rejected.
It concerned alcohol being banned at happy hour in a barbecue area.
Five residents of Condell Retirement Village in Bryndwr, Christchurch brought the case.
The second case was from residents of Tauranga retirement village Arvida Bethlehem Country Club, who lost a case they brought against the operator over a footpath closure and a fence being put up to stop them taking a shortcut to their clubhouse.
The issue arose after the operator decided to close a footpath and erect the fence.
That path had been used by residents to get to their clubhouse but now they have to take a longer way around to access communal facilities at the property at 111 Carmichael Rd.
The group living at the village in Tauranga took their case through the formal dispute resolution system and went all the way to a dispute panel hearing.
But privacy and disturbance concerns for adjacent villas were two defences for the path closure and fence construction.
New pathway soon?
Retirement village residents may get a new dispute system soon, as part of the work.
The commission undertook to inform the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development on a legislative review of the existing law, which is widely seen to be deficient.
This report was taken into account by the ministry as it developed plans to review retirement village complaints.
The Government agreed to make legislative changes on a number of issues, including:
The commission expects a bill reflecting the changes will be introduced to Parliament in mid-2026, a spokeswoman said.
Maybe then we’ll get a truer picture of just how happy people are at these properties.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 26 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.