Sylvia Park's $277 million The Galleria to open next month

Friday, 11 September 2020

Sylvia Park’s shopping mall’s $277 million expansion will open on October 15 after a delay due to the alert level 4 lockdown earlier this year.

Owner Kiwi Property announced the opening date of The Galleria on Friday, saying the extension of the mall would offer almost 60 new stores and a dining precinct.

The 20,000-square-metre development will take the total number of stores at Sylvia Park to 250, the most of any shopping centre in the country.

Kiwi Property chief executive Clive Mackenzie said The Galleria would raise the bar for retail in Auckland.

Artist's impression of The Galleria at Sylvia Park, Auckland, which is scheduled to open on October 15.

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The full list of new tenants would be named in the next few iweeks, Mackenzie said.

However, Farmers would open an 8100sqm flagship store.

The Galleria was originally been scheduled to open in July.

The Sylvia Park expansion is part of a massive retail investment in Auckland over the past year by several mall owners.

Westfield opened the $790m Newmarket development with 230 stores in August last year.

Precinct Properties opened the $1 billion Commercial Bay office and retail development, with 100 stores, in mid June.

First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said the larger shopping centres had become destinations in their own right.

“This is on the scale of shopping centres that we have seen overseas,” Wilkinson said.

Each mall offered something different to customers and would appeal to different demographics, he said.

While Covid-19 meant that it was not the ideal time to open new malls but the developments had been long planned, he said.

The next big retail development in Auckland would be Kiwi Property’s Drury development.

Oyster Capital, Fulton Hogan and Kiwi Property were collectively planning to rezone about 330 hectares of land in Drury East from future urban to a mix of residential, business and open space zones.