Auckland's biggest suburban regeneration seeks global developer interest

Friday, 13 October 2023

Pou Tiaki reporter Eda Tang visits Northcote Town Centre on Auckland’s North Shore – a gathering place for many of Auckland’s diverse Asian communities.

Global and local developers are being sought for Auckland’s biggest suburban regeneration project – the Northcote Town Centre where up to 700 homes, shops and improved public space are planned.

The quest to find a developer or consortium follows years of property purchases by Auckland Council’s regeneration agency Eke Panuku to create a single 3.1ha block, which also has an important cultural role.

Once a sleepy single-level 1960’s suburban centre with big tracts of traditional state housing, Northcote is evolving rapidly.

A Kāinga Ora project is near the end of building 1700 open market and public homes in the neighbourhood.

Eke Panuku’s call for developer interest leaves open whether it might be one entity, a consortium, or individual firms each get part of the puzzle, but the agency hopes for global as well as local interest.

“It would be great to have as wide a coverage of interest as possible – to be able to see capacity and capabilities,” said Kate Cumberpatch, the priority location director.

Northcote town centre has been called a “sanctuary for Chinese languages”.

A challenge for the bricks-and-mortar redevelopment will be to retain the current town centre’s strength in affordable Asian food outlets and shops in what was called a “sanctuary for Chinese languages”.

Members of the Chinese community who spoke to Stuff in 2022 expressed the value of centres such as Northcote, where locals can shop and access services in their own language, as well as English.

An existing Elm tree will be retained as a centrepiece in public space in the Northcote redevelopment.

Cumberpatch acknowledged the question of who sets up in new shops is hard to negotiate, but it had worked closely with retailers and the phased nature of construction means changes will be staged.

The land has always been in council ownership, going back to the Northcote Borough Council, but the council has had to buy back privately-owned buildings from land leaseholders.

Impression of how a redeveloped town square in Auckland's Northcote might look.

An important stream revitalisation called Te Ara Awataha proved itself in the rain events in early 2023, when the greenspace held and drained floodwaters which might otherwise have hit built-up areas.

“We have so many pictures from the past of people with the only way to get through was sitting in a shopping trolley,” said Cumberpatch.

“All that flooding and the significant overland flow paths that have historically crippled Northcote Town Centre – that’s all solved now,” she said.

An upgraded library and community hub are part of the development bottom lines, along with the requirement for sustainable homes.

Eke Panuku is confident that despite economic uncertainty, there will be strong developer interest because of the scale of the project, and the likelihood it will span economic cycles.

Work is not envisaged to start until 2027, with several layers of screening developer interest, before the final decision is made.