Smiths City Timaru store to close

Sunday, 25 February 2024

Smiths City, at 5 Stafford St, Timaru, will close in the near future.

Timaru’s Smith City will close in four to six weeks because the lease is set to expire on the building.
Up to eight staff members are affected by the closure.
The store has been in Timaru for more than 25 years.

A long-time Timaru department store in the town’s CBD will close in the near future.

The owner of Smiths City, on Stafford St, confirmed the store’s closure in four to six weeks, bringing an end to a business that has been in Timaru for more than 25 years.

Colin Neal, the investor whose company Polar Capital owns the furniture and electronics retail chain, confirmed the closure on Friday.

Colin Neal, the investor whose company Polar Capital owns Smiths City, at Christchurch’s The Colombo in 2020.

'The store [in Timaru] will close in four to six weeks because our lease is set expire.''

He said up to eight staff members were affected and when asked if they had been given opportunities at other Smiths City stores, Neal said “yes, going through this process now’’.

On Tuesday, it was confirmed the Smiths City store in Richmond, Tasman, was set to close, with staff relocating to the Nelson store.

The business, formerly in the top end of Stafford St, opposite Ballantynes, moved to its present site in 2009.

At the time, Smiths City Group managing director Rick Hellings said the move was mainly about having more space.

In March 2023, it was announced the business would move to Timaru’s Evans St to take up the building that is home to Briscoes.

Timaru’s Briscoes Homeware store on Evans St/State Highway 1.

The lease for Briscoes, at 77 Evans St/ State Highway 1 was set to expire on October 31, 2024, with incoming tenant Smiths City set to commence a new lease on November 1, 2024, a listing on Trade Me, at the time, said.

However, just seven weeks later, in May 2023, Briscoe Group managing director Rod Duke told The Timaru Herald the deal was off the table. He confirmed his company had purchased the Evans St site occupied by Briscoes, and the store would remain there for “the foreseeable future”.

Following the announcement, Smiths City managing director Tony Allison said, in response to questions about the future of the Timaru store, “we won’t be leaving Timaru – we love the place’’.

“We have some time and expect to work through a solution in the coming months,’’ Allison said.