Mitre 10 owners take over Sanitarium site for new Mega store
Wednesday, 15 June 2016
The owners of a new Mitre 10 Mega on Christchurch's old marmite factory site have ended a 13-year search for a bigger store in the city's north west. Next stop could be the old tyre factory site next door.
Mitre 10 Mega owners Murray and Andrew Smith this week opened a store at Sanitarium's former marmite factory in Papanui.
Sanitarium repaired its buildings before selling the site to the Smiths, who ownseveral Mitre 10s in the city.
The food company will be gone from Papanui by 2019, giving Mitre 10 more room to expand and leaving only traces like Sanitarium's art deco gates and a factory garden fountain.
*** New retail centre planned for former tyre factory site
* Sanitarium sells off factory
* Inspection of Marmite factory to wrap up
* Withdrawal as marmite shortage continues**
Murray Smith said they looked at 13 other options for a new store in the area over the past 13 years. Eventually they bought the Sanitarium block and the old Firestone factory next door on Langdons Rd.
The Sanitarium block was bigger than they originally wanted, but it created a ring of Mitre 10s around the city, from Ferrymead in the east, to Beckenham and southward to Hornby.
Resource consent documents show the Papanui site occupies nearly a third of the 33,000 square metres of suburban industrial-zoned land around Northlands Mall. City planning for the area allows light industrial, office and other commercial businesses near adjoining suburbs.
In May the Smiths applied to the Christchurch City Council to build a 'large format retail centre' on the former Firestone block.
Smith said on Wednesday the Firestone factory had been their first pick, but picked the Sanitarium block when the owners made them an offer.
Hardware stores were getting bigger and trade customers increasingly wanted their own standalone trade centre, which would probably be built on the old Firestone lot, he said.
On Tuesday the Smiths closed their store at Bishopdale Mall after 33 years and were putting the last licks of paint on the new store on Wednesday morning.
A neighbouring resident opposed the Smith's non-notified consent application for the site. The homeowner was concerned about the building's orange colour scheme, large signage, car-parking and increased traffic in the area.
Christchurch City Council planners said in their submision that the store could create more traffic in surrounding residential areas.
In approving resource consent for the store, commissioner David Collins said while the amount of signage proposed for the site was high, setbacks for the signage and landscaping would reduce the store's visual impact. Collins noted the city plan did not have any controls for colour or building materials.
Andrew Smith said they were especially proud of the Sanitarium fountain, which they had 'reconditioned' with a new pump and paintwork.
They also kept the decorative stone frontage on Harewood Rd, rebuilding parts where necessary. But it was still a commercial site and customers wanted bigger stores, he said.
'Yes, some people don't like a barn but it's the way a lot of retailing is going. People just want a one-stop place to go.'