Next stage of $1 billion Auranga development in Drury begins
Friday, 3 April 2026
It’s been a long time coming, but earthworks are now under way for the town centre of the ambitious $1 billion-plus Auranga development in Drury in South Auckland.
The last few years have been tough for the construction sector and the property market, and work on the development ground to a halt at one point.
Now, a fuel crisis driven by the war in the Middle East is looming, but Charles Ma, the man behind Auranga, says the time is right for the next stage ‒ a $500 million-plus town centre ‒ to begin.
The necessary resource consents for the town centre are in place, and after the site was blessed by iwi, Ma turned the first sod on the site in March, and earthworks began.
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“It has taken blood, sweat and tears to get to this point, but we really feel we can do it, and deliver on our vision,” he says.
Ma embarked on the development more than 11 years ago with the purchase of the land in 2015. He founded MADE Group in 2016 to advance his vision, and the first homes were completed in 2019.
The plan has always been for Auranga, which is 40km south of central Auckland, to eventually have 3000 homes over the 83ha block of land.
A retirement village and about 1000 homes have been built, and more than 1500 people live in them, but progress on other features of the development stalled for some time.
When the build started, back in the 2010s, the market was booming, but subsequently the world changed, first with Covid and then the recession, Ma says.
A series of challenges ‒ including KiwiRail’s decision to place a train station half a kilometre away from Auranga’s town centre rather than close to it, and the prolonged market downturn ‒ left him disillusioned.
In 2023 he put the 35.5 acre block of land intended for the town centre section on the market, but a potential sale fell through and he eventually decided to reignite the project.
“Talking to the community here, and securing a full funding package for the town centre convinced me to keep going. The town centre will be the anchor of Auranga, and showcase the nature of the community we are trying to build.”
Auranga is a part of the huge redevelopment of the Drury area, which is expected to grow to house about 60,000 people, the equivalent of a city the size of Nelson, over the next 20 years.
With the Drury train station and rail link scheduled for completion in 2027, and NZTA busy building roads around the area, it feels like infrastructure development is aligning with the development, he says.
That’s contributed to Ma’s drive to move ahead with his plans for the town centre, and he has recruited a top-level team to get there.
Experienced retail developer Chris Jones, from LandSmart Group, is development manager, and contractors include Dempsey Woods, McKenzie & Co, McIndoe Urban, Stapleton Elliot, and RCG.
In response to a question on whether rising fuel and freighting prices due to the conflict in the Middle East could impact on the development, Ma says no, not in terms of the bigger picture
“When you're building a town centre and a community over years like we’re doing at Auranga, this type of crisis is a short term blip in a very long time frame.”
Instead they are focusing on creating a different sort of town centre, one that is less a commercial precinct than a boutique collection of lifestyle oriented spaces centred around the lake.
It will be called Sharewater Ngākōroa, and will include a supermarket, food and beverage outlets, shops, a healthcare centre, properties designed for experiences, such as a music venue, and a town square.
Ma says it will be hyper-local, but also “destinational” as they want the centre to encourage people to value creativity and to spark entrepreneurship, and for people to want to spend time in it.
“We are curating this very deliberately, and work with tenants who share our vision. We don't want to compromise that, but we feel like there's a market for our standard.”
The vision comes with hefty costs. All up the town centre will cost between $500m and $700m, with about $120m for the land development alone, he says.
For Jones, who will be Ma’s man on the ground, Auranga’s location is key, and will give the town centre real interest as a destination.
“It’s just an ideal place in terms of all the growth that's going on in Drury. That’s because it’s a gateway to the area, but it’s also like an oasis with its position alongside the lake.
“Negotiations with potential tenants are under way, and we’ve got some signed up, and others that are signing up. But we can’t release any names yet.”
The first step is unlocking roading, with the civic works for the town centre expected to be completed in 2027, and the first buildings due to start coming out of the ground in 2028, he says.
Land development for a further 1500 residential sections in Auranga is under way, and a tranche of 27 townhouses are currently being built.
The broader Drury development includes projects such as Drury South Crossing, a 361ha master-planned residential and commercial precinct, and Kiwi Property’s 53ha Drury Metropolitan Centre, which will include commercial, retail and community spaces.
New Zealand’s second CostCo will be in part of Kiwi Property’s landholding, while other big box retailers, such as Harvey Normans & Briscoes/Rebel Sport, are also setting up in the area.