Sylvia Park is already Auckland’s largest shopping centre, but it’s likely to get even bigger in the next few years. Kiwi Property, who own the centre, have plans to expand the retail offering, as well as adding office buildings. In the long term, even things like apartments or hotels could be added, although those aren’t part of the current plans.
A recent Kiwi Property presentation shows what’s planned for the ground floor of the centre:
On the ground floor, H&M and Zara are already under construction, but there are plans for a major new office building of 11,200 square metres (about half the size of ASB North Wharf, or a little smaller than the new Fonterra building). The building will be next to the “dining lane” area which will also be given a makeover – perhaps something like the new Brickworks precinct at Lynnmall, also owned by Kiwi Property.
The office building could get underway as early as late 2016, wrapping up in 2018.
From the same presentation, showing the upper floor:
This is a major retail expansion, with 20,000 square metres – adding another 25% to the existing mall. Next to it, there are plans for a multi-deck carpark, adding another 500 parks to the current 3,900. Multi-level retail has had a pretty mixed history in New Zealand, and there aren’t that many examples where it’s been successful (St Lukes is one). Kiwi Property will be hoping that they can support the new upstairs shops by connecting them to the new carparks, and I’d expect that those two developments would happen at the same time.
Although the total number of carparks is increasing, Kiwi Property is adding many fewer parking spaces than would have been required under the old Auckland isthmus plan. The mall expansion will add one new carpark for every additional 40 square metres of retail space.
By contrast, Section 12 of the old Auckland isthmus district plan, which dealt with parking requirements, required one parking space for every 17 square metres of retail space:
Before the Unitary Plan, which will remove MPRs from major retail centres like Sylvia Park (assuming the hearings panel approves the change), Sylvia Park basically hewed to those ratios. At present, it’s got one parking space per 18.5 square metres of retail space.
The Unitary Plan seems to have changed that – Kiwi Property is planning to expand retail space while providing less than half as much parking as would have been required under the previous district plan. This isn’t a case of maximum parking rules restraining development, either. The proposed Unitary Plan sets a maximum parking rate of one carpark per 20 square metres – a lot more parking than Kiwi Property is planning on building.
The irony is that Kiwi Property was among the major retailers arguing against the removal of MPRs from retail centres in Unitary Plan hearings. In their corporate submission and in their planning evidence, they argued that removal of MPRs would make it difficult for retailers to invest in centres:
Consequently, they proposed a minimum requirement of one carpark per 30 square metres of retail space – i.e. a higher ratio than what they’re now planning to build, although the centre as a whole will still fall within these ratios:
Now, it looks as though Kiwi Property – and their customers – stand to be among the first big beneficiaries of a policy change that they opposed. But while that’s ironic, this is an excellent development. It’s a perfect illustration of the benefits of a more light-handed approach to parking policies – and of the benefits of providing good transport choices to retail centres.
Sylvia Park is lucky enough to have a train station right next door, and bus links which are likely to get a boost in the next few years. As the centre keeps growing and public transport keeps improving, Sylvia Park will increasingly rely on its transit links to support its growth. Other retail centres are likely to follow the same pattern as Auckland rolls out its new bus network and continues integrating rapid transit into the city fabric.
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Sylvia Park Station is instructive because its ridership is almost entirely captured by the mall, as it is severed from pretty much all other local access, certainly much more so than other town centre stations. So it’s rise up the leader board is hard proof that Quaxing by Rapid Transit is indeed a very real thing in Auckland, whatever the eponymous Council may opine:
Considering how badly the station itself is severed from the very Mall its supposed to [only] serve, its a wonder anybody bothers with that station at all.
And yet in these new wondrous plans, we see no evidence of any attempt to remove the severance and link the station up to the mall properly.
No, instead its more and more car parks.
Imagine how much money the mall owner could save if they could halve the levels of carparks planned on being built – easy to do by *really* integrating the station to the mall properly so its a no brainer to arrive by train or leave by train, without the tortuous up and over then down again to get into the mall surround, followed by the scramble to cross over the “ring road”.
Done right a proper integration could well and truly give the Downtown Centre replacement [Commercial Bay] mall, which is adjacent the CRL at Britomart, a real run for its money in terms of PT using customers.
As its stands, meh, I’d not be bothered with quaxing at this mall.
It’s not terrible – given that the very nature of the mall experience is that you’re walking around quite a lot anyway – adding 100m isn’t a huge problem. What really needs to happen is that the other side of the tracks be unlocked with residential and commercial development, rather than the truck/container parks there currently.
I agree they should build a inviting air conditioned overpass directly into the mall – similar to downtown shopping centre connecting pwc building.
Also train fare should be subsidised with purchases, just like how car parks are subsidised.
For example the mall either pay At, in return of free or heavyly discounted ride to the mall.
Alternatively free train fare are given with any purchase receipt.
Greg N, its the first thing I thought of too.
The station is so close, yet treated like a red-headed stepchild and left just off the fringes.
Last time I was there, the rain was bucketing down and it was a little frustrating to get so wet just walking from station to mall. Add to that having a baby stroller and having to go up, over and down in lifts…..nightmare.
Its one of those weird things. Anywhere else in the world they would be integrating that into the mall. But NZ does just not seem to bother. I don’t think Sylvia Park cares much, to be honest. Hence spending millions on a multi-level car park but nothing for train users, despite those graphs above.
The thing is, Sylvia Park actually funded the construction of the Sylvia Park Station, so you’d think that integrating it into the mall would have been in their best interests.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0707/S00002.htm
Look at Manukau surge through the chart so indeed as Patrick says the proof is in the pudding when you put a transit link in a Metropolitan Centre.
So much space wasted by car parking, especially since the main parking lot is not very pedestrian friendly.
I look forward to the plans to convert much of that to multi-level parking
A great example of the futility of minimum parking requirements.
…and of the lawyers that advise property companies…?
I hope they put some more thought into the comfort of bus users as well. An integrated bus stop area with better seating and weather protection would be great. The existing bus stops for Sylvia Park are hard to find, marooned in the sea of car parking, and with inadequate shelter. St Lukes is worse, the bus “shelters” face south into the prevailing wind and I have seen people standing behind them to get some protection from the rain.
There is some vague plan to upgrade & integrate the bus with the train better: https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/ameti/sylvia-park-bus-and-cycling-improvements/ Will be more important with the new network for seamless transfers.
I am hoping that one day Syvia Park utilises those ground level car space as extra retail space. It is such a waste of useful space. Put all cars underground or cover up them up, does not matter, just use the space wisely!
In many countries, public transport is at the heart of their malls rather than at the fringe. New Zealand needs to learn from these malls. Integrate trains and buses into the mall, make it easier for users to access mall. Make public transport part of Sylvia Park and I’m pretty sure they wont need much of those carparks anymore.
I dont understand your point. This site has a concept plan in the current District Plan that controls the parking with both maxima and minima. The new bits comply with those rules. The retailers asked that the the PAUP make sure developers mitigate their effects. The only irony here is that these large retailers stand to benefit when the minima are removed from other smaller traditional multi-owner centres as those areas will get a major parking problem. Most of the large malls are far enough from their neighbours that the ‘tragedy of the commons’ wont effect them much.
“tragedy of the commons”. Whats the standard fix for a tradgedy of the commons again? Its been a while since I did School C Economics.
The traditional fix is to have one owner. Privatisation. That is why the malls will win and the traditional streets will suffer from this most from this change.
I don’t see a Gucci, Louis Vuitton etc in any of NZ’s malls. They are on lower Queen St though and their ilk are growing in number.
And that should worry you. They are there to cater to tourists. Not you or me.
If you think kiwis don’t buy from there, think again. I have. Why tourists buying there would worry you….WTH?
You really have some issues, judging by some of your archaic comments on these posts.
Mfwic – I always pictured you as a Gucci man, this has somewhat shattered my image of you!
Good point KLK. I’ve been to a lot of malls around the world (out of architectural interest, don’t think I have ever actually bought anything in one), but I have never seen a Gucci or Louis Vutton shop in a mall. Must be against the LVMH corporate ethos – malls are for the common people, LV stores must exhibit exclusivity. Mall shopping is typically all the same, mediocre, bland, middle of the market clothing stores, predominantly for women. Read Elizabeth Farrelly’s brilliant diagnosis in “Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness” if you don’t believe me.
The same with food. You just get the obligatory fast food chains and nothing else. Eating out is not a lot of fun if your only options are inside a mall.
I honestly don’t know what point you are making. Is it “I know of some expensive shops that sell to cruise ship passengers who located near the cruise ships and not in a mall”? Or are you saying that if something works in an inner city downtown area it works anywhere? We were discussing the impending change to parking rates outside the cdb. The cbd isnt going to change at all. But years ago when the cbd changed to permitted parking, the big shops moved out.
Nonsense. If the malls were going to win from the change then they wouldn’t be fighting against it. If they are then they are in violation of their duty to shareholders – at least the publicly listed ones like KIPT would be. You’re effectively suggesting the malls don’t know what is in their interest. Cry me a river.
More likely scenario is the malls realise that mprs hold back redevelopment of small landholdings and therefore prevent redevelopment of traditional streets. Malls probably also know small to medium sized retailers have less capacity to argue against mprs, so the restriction is more binding than it is for the mall owners – who have considerable resources to throw at a consent application that doesn’t meet mprs.
Occams razor my friend.
I am not saying there is no cost to the malls of removing MPRs of course there is and that is why they are fighting. The costs are really high for them, first they have to try and buy out neighbours who might freeload on their parking (noticed the old Apex centre opposite is now called the Sylvia Park Lifestyle Centre?) Second if they can’t eliminate freeloaders they are faced with trying to provide more parking than before in order to meet the combined demand of their customers and their neighbours. Only when the costs of those options get too high do they start pricing their own spaces as that runs the risk of driving customers away.
What I am saying is the real downside will be those traditional areas with multiple owners. All they can do is ask the Council to build them a carpark.
I think you can split the commons up into more than one title, just one owner per title. The key thing is the owner can then decide how much grazing happens and has the right to tell other shephards to sod off. Its up to him to police that as he chooses.
It is one of the most interesting bits of history. The great enclosure acts solved the inefficiency but resulted in the displacement of thousands of subsistence farmers who depended on the commons for their livelihood. They ended up moving to the cities and fueled the industrial revolution as cheap labour in hideous factories. Development Economists suggest land reform is almost always one of the precursors to industrialisation. But the lesson is if we are going to promote road pricing because of its benefits we need to understand that there will be losers and they will often be the poorer people. We need a better answer than the traditional “dont be a poor person” attitude of the liberal economists.
“We need a better answer than the traditional “dont be a poor person” attitude of the liberal economists.” – good luck with that in NZ.
We have swallowed the neolib religion hook line and sinker.
The answer is – lets give them cash. If I was poor I’d rather have the cash than the opportunity to drive on a free road that I’ve had to pay for with petrol tax anyway, and that I may or may not want to use. Providing free roads, with all the inefficiency that entails, as a method of welfare is just plain stupid.
Tragedy of the commons occurs when a resource is non-excludable (uncontrolled access) and rivalrous (use disbenefits others).
Thus ToC only occurs in parking because we’ve made parking non-excludable by providing it for free. Ofc this is good for poor people – but so would be providing free food, housing, etc – we don’t do that.
If your so worried about poor people then why not just dedicate the funds from selling parking spaces at market rates to those who are underprivileged? Then *they* can decide what to do with their money.
No idea where everywhere else in the economy the private market is expected to step up, but when it comes to vehicle transportation we have to adopt the communist model, even where it is clearly causing massive inefficiencies and externalities.
Just because we operate parking as a common pool doesn’t mean it can’t be efficient. You cant have heard of Ostroms law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom
She set out design principles for setting up and managing common resources. For parking one of the principles has been you create a demand means you get to add that much to the supply. Not under the PAUP though because some short sighted people think there is or should be a market for parking in retail centres. There isn’t. Parking is one of the inputs the retailer uses to get customers. The higher value retailers have an interest in making sure that continues, the low value retailers just want to free ride on their neighbours investment.
Ostrom’s principles don’t apply here. Common-pool goods are are rivalrous but non-excludable. Parking is clearly excludable – it’s *totally* possible to keep someone from parking in your spot. The technology exists, and it’s only going to get cheaper with real-time monitoring and smartphone payment systems.
And even if they *did* apply, it’s worth noting that Ostrom’s first principle for managing common-pool goods is to provide a “clear definition of the contents of the common pool resource and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties”. That sounds a hell of a lot like, say, a parking management strategy.
Her second principle is to establish “rules regarding the appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions”. That sounds a lot like AT’s parking strategy, which provides for a range of parking management options for different places, e.g. priced parking, time limits, parking permits, etc.
Her fourth principle is to undertake “effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators”. That, again, sounds like parking management to me!
Nowhere in the list is there a statement that implies that new entrants to the parking market should build more parking as a condition of entry. You’re basically misrepresenting the institutional economics literature and hoping that nobody even reads the wikipedia page, which you linked to!
A further comment is that if there *is* in fact a common-pool resource here, it’s public on-street parking, not privately provided off-street parking.
MPRs are a policy that only apply to off-street parking – and consequently they are at best an indirect and at worst a hideously inefficient and useless method of managing a separate common-pool resource. It’s the equivalent of managing fisheries by requiring everyone to eat more beef. There are spillovers between the beef and fish markets, but it just doesn’t make sense to do it that way.
Another interpretation is that parking could be managed by setting rules in a district plan with clearly defined exemptions of when new entrants dont have to provide. Just like we have had for the last 40 or 50 years. The only thing you got right here was that i hadn’t read the wikipedia article I linked to. The reason for the link is because I like her idea that a method that works in practice is the most important thing and that can be efficient.
What truly alarms me is your first reaction that parking can be excludable ergo it should be excludable. WTF is that based on? Parking for a residential dwelling is easily excludable, parking for customers at a shopping centre isnt easily excludable. Sure we can put in gates and barriers and charge for parking but what cost does that have in terms of discouraging customers to come? They just go to the competitors centre where parking is free. Even if you validate free parking for people who buy something there is a cost. Customers go to have a look because they enjoy it not always because they know they will buy something.
You continue to see parking as separate from the retail it serves, as some market that should be priced. Retailers are not in the parking business, they have no interest in charging their neighbours customers for somewhere to park. They are in the trade of getting people through their own doors. Yet the Shoup view is that the only efficient answer is to unbundle and view every element as a discrete market unrelated to the next, some kind of embodiment of the ceteris paribus assumption. And that is where it fails. Someone else will provide what people actually want, a parking area by a big mall where they can park once and walk around all of the shops without being nickeled and dimed by a parking machine. The key to this is to make sure your own parking is inconvenient for your neighbour’s customers. That is why we will now spend more time and energy making malls less connected to the local area in direct conflict with all the urban design goals people want. All to protect the scarce parking resource.
Parking for retail centres is a common pool resource, that is how it is run to provide the best returns to the retailers. The problem with MPR’s is that for small shops they prevent that pool from working properly. MPR’s start by requiring each small owner to have their own separate parking area. That is the bit we should have worked on changing. Perhaps when this new regime MRC has been pushing up and down NZ fails we might move to a cash in lieu or special rating area method based on MPR’s instead.
“Sure we can put in gates and barriers and charge for parking but what cost does that have in terms of discouraging customers to come? They just go to the competitors centre where parking is free.”
Businesses can structure their customer experience, pricing and service model exactly how they see fit. Builders will give you a free quote in the hope it leads to more business. Bars offer free peanuts or popcorn. And retailers can offer free parking. Thats all good, but its far from justifiable to force other businesses to adopt the same business model because of the disadvantages associated with your own choices. Its a free country FFS.
Matthew what if everyone working together lifts everyone up. Remember the only businesses advantaged by this change are those that create a parking demand but dont want to contribute to the supply. The businesses that dont create demand have always got a dispensation, they have never been required to provide spaces, bot in this country at least.
From an user’s perspective, parking is priced anyway. Be it in dollars, or in time wasted while circling around for parking. And the latter is way more likely to make me decide to go somewhere else. I know not to drive to Sylvia Park on a Saturday afternoon.
The idea of shops with each their own little parking lot: that’s the last idea we need to promote. You can go shopping in Wairau Valley for a serve. You can also observe how pleasant these places are if you’re not coming by car. If you can reach them at all. And you know what, walking to the next shop in Ponsonby is a lot faster than moving your car to the next shop in Wairau Valley.
And rest assured, people get used to being nickled and dimed. Mobile phones often still charge by the minute. The internet took off in an age where you had to pay per minute that your modem was connected. And, perhaps more to the point, did you know your car constantly consumes fuel while driving?
Anyway we’re discussing the wrong problem. My car didn’t buy any clothes last year. Maybe we should think about how to get people to shops. Without their car if necessary. There are areas in Auckland where you can still walk to shops. And for some reason there’s not a lot of houses for less than a million $$$ in these areas.
“Matthew what if everyone working together lifts everyone up. Remember the only businesses advantaged by this change are those that create a parking demand but dont want to contribute to the supply.”
Nope, it advantages businesses that dont want to supply parking free to their customers. Whether their presence “creates parking demand” (whatever that means), is a whole separate question, and not directly related to whether or not the businesses will benefit.
“Remember the only businesses advantaged by this change are those that create a parking demand but dont want to contribute to the supply. The businesses that dont create demand have always got a dispensation, they have never been required to provide spaces, bot in this country at least.”
Perfect economic and statistical madness right here.
1. Parking rates are typically set under the assumption that “demand for parking” is equal to “demand for parking at price=0”. Achieving that means regulating that the supply curve is strictly *above* the demand curve at virtually all points. The deadweight costs of doing so are huge.
2. I’ve looked at the data on parking occupancy rates for businesses. Variance is huge. Similar businesses have radically different parking demand, depending upon location, scale, surrounding land use, and a whole host of other unmeasurable factors. Saying that retail activities will invariably require 1 parking space for every 17m2 (or 30m2, or whatever) will be wrong in the vast majority of cases. In cases where this ratio is too high, it will result in excessive costs on businesses. In cases where the ratio is too low, it won’t adequately manage parking spillover anyway.
“Yet the Shoup view is that the only efficient answer is to unbundle and view every element as a discrete market unrelated to the next, some kind of embodiment of the ceteris paribus assumption. And that is where it fails.”
Straw man! I think you need to actually read Shoup’s book, or re-read it more closely. He argues that *on-street* parking should be priced to manage demand. Off-street parking can be managed in any way that owners see fit. In some cases this will mean bundling the price of parking into retail or house prices. In others, it will mean unbundling. Shoup’s assumption is that in the absence of MPRs people will be able to choose what’s best for them (and negotiate with their neighbours to manage spillovers appropriately).
In any case I accept it is now a lost argument. The Council wants rid of parking rules so that is probably what we will get. That doesn’t mean retailers will charge for parking though, just as currently most dont charge despite their parking being full at some times. The problem they face is most would prefer a full carpark at times rather than scare customers away at all other times. Variable pricing is just death for your brand so free, with no parking available at times will most likely be the best choice available. But those shortages will result in pressure for the Council to get back into the parking game which of course is what the rules were brought in to address in the first place.
I live across the road from Sylvia Park. For me some really forward thinking ideas would be the following.
– Connect train station to the mall itself. As mentioned by Greg N access to the station is bad. Using the lift to get to the trains when having a baby stroller really sucks as it’s so small and sometimes people wee in the lift in the early hours so it’s not desirable. Also going through there as a car user is a pain as people dawdle across the zebra crossing at their own pace and slow all the cars trying to go past.
A sheltered overbridge linked directly to the station makes sense or otherwise dig out the existing angled parking outside the police office and connect a tunnel to the station. Whichever is cheaper will help tremendously.
– Same thing as above to connect up to Apex centre across the road on Mt Wellington Highway.
Utterly stupid to not have both of these connected up in future.
– Integrate a mixed transport hub or clip on some stairs on the SE highway that goes through Sylvia Park. Looking at Phase 2 & Phase 3 of Sylvia Park’s proposed expansion being next to the highway it would be an absolute no brainer to think forward and put some transport terminals onto the commercial office building on ground level and above connected to the SE highway.
– KPT to purchase Coca Cola’s buildings and land on the other side of the train line. Just because they could if they wanted to. Convert it all into terraced housing/apartments with an open park at ground level and sheltered areas.
Aucklanders need to see how beautifully the Metro/Subway stations in Montreal and Toronto are integrated with malls, workplaces and apartments. Maybe we would have benefited from a colder climate!
Interesting point – many places with a colder climate do plan around making it easier to get indoors/stay warm. Cold rain and snow like in Canada doesnt really make for amazing driving conditions, plus the walk from the carpark to the mall.
‘opening up’ the back entrance (where the train station is) of Sylvia Park would be interesting to see, making that area the focal point of the journey perhaps.
The access to the platforms at Sylvia Park Train Station is rather user UNfriendly. What would be better is an underground access leading to the heart of the mall
Agree that connection to the stations should be more seamless and inviting. The problem exists at Lynn Mall and Henderson too. Henderson’s is diabolical for being so close but so far.
There seems to be a plan see https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/ameti/sylvia-park-bus-and-cycling-improvements/
and also see under the heading “Preferred approach” on this link https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/east-west-connections/#buspriority
There should be a even lower minimum parking requirement if there is a major bus stop or train station within short walking distance.
Can’t get lower than zero. Unless you start to tax supply.
Isn’t the current minimum is one carpark per 30sqm ?
Current is 1 per 17, will be reduced to 0 under UP.
I put in a recent AT consultation in the general section provide access to Carbine Road from the station.
Agree the space could be improved that area by the station could be a nice square with markets or pop up vendors live music etc. rather than the tin box dumping ground it is atm
one parking space for every 17 square metres of retail space → note how one parking space takes up more than 17m² (including driveways and the likes). No wonder those newer so-called “town centres” look so silly on aerial images.
I’ve been in that mall a couple of times, but I never really thought of where the station is. To me it always looked like it was “kind of” inside that mall. If it weren’t so cumbersome to get on a train from where I live — the western half of the CBD (!) — I’d definitely take the train instead of drive. The station may be at the edge of the mall, but finding the station is easier than finding your car in that carpark.
Severance from surroundings, yes. If you’re in your car at the traffic light in the middle of Mount Wellington Highway it is quite the view. The Machines Have Won. Another problem is that the surrounding area just isn’t very focused, with the usual mix of light industry and shops. If you want to take the train to one of the shops you’re in for a very unpleasant 20-minute walk.
In all this debate about car parking and station integration etc, etc, people seem to be forgetting that we practically only have 3 train lines in Auckland. A large chunk of Auckland (the delta between New Lynn, Mt Eden and Onehunga) is not even served by an RTS. How are these people supposed to get to SP? Not to mention the North Shore and the Eastern Suburbs. I say sort the public transport out before culling the car parks.
point is, that the two go hand in hand.
We do have buses Bobby. But I agree we should sort out the quality of these services.
North Shore? It doesn’t have rail (yet) but it does have a pretty damn high quality busway with high frequencies and double deckers.
But they dont go anywhere close to Albany mall, Glenfield or Milford. You can get to Takapuna.
Akoranga station to Shore City mall is an unpleasant 20 minute walk
Great! Yet another opportunity to avoid the hell that is a mall, and that one in particular. Akoranga is a quick bus ride to the City; what can’t you get there?
Well there’s more to see than that mall in the Takapuna town centre. There’s a beach nearby. There’s shops and restaurants on Hurstmere road. It’s one of the few places on the Shore where there’s still something to see/do after 8pm on Friday evening.
The main point is, for most people there’s nothing to see around Akoranga station at all. Same for Smales Farm. Generally the busway is not really aligned with anywhere you’d want to go, especially in the weekend. Most of the time it’s either a long walk (half an hour to the beach) or an exceedingly cumbersome bus ride (hourly buses).
OTOH from the CBD you can get to Takapuna and Birkenhead easily, just not via the busway.
There’s no reduction of carparks proposed for Sylvia Park – their new development plans envisage an increase in carparks. However, it’s a much lower increase than would be required under previous district plan rules. That’s a win-win for the mall-owner, as they don’t have to spend as much on expensive parking facilities, and for customers, who will continue to have a range of transport choices.
Sylvia Park hasn’t been forced to cull car parks they have chosen two, which is their right as a private business. They have obviously done the numbers and decided it is a sufficient amount of parking.
Agreed, there are so many silly comments on this blog. The Mall is a commercial enterprise….if the owners thought it made economic sense to reduce carparks they would. Clearly it isn’t. Still those who know best for everyone else insist on whinging about parking.
There is a Sylvia Park to New Lynn bus that goes through Onehunga, Mt Roskill, Blockhouse Bay etc.
In my experience its always hard to find a car park at that mall. So I’m somewhat surprised that they’re building a lower proportion.
Those station stats are interesting. Whats happening at Baldwin, Mt Albert, Fruitvale, Henderson, Ranui? Was this the effect of unreliable diesel locos? The introduction of HOP?
Agree with the above about integrating the station and mall. At least the mall was positioned on the side of the site it is, and the station is not at the far side of a carpark.
It’s more that the other stations grew their pax at much faster rate than those you mentioned lost any. The whole system is growing consistently at 20% year on year, which is incredibly fast and as it compounds is now starting to record really high raw numbers. For example it’s currently around 16m in annual total, if it continues to add riders at the current 20% rate then it’ll be over 19m this time next year! Way above any expectations.
It’s a relative list, for every rise there has to be a fall, even if the overall system is growing rapidly.
Other places in the world the mall would be part of an office/apartment complex. Any reason why this is not happening here?
Good question – they’ve still got capacity to expand floorspace on the site, so I assume that residential development will happen when it makes sense commercially. It’s a bit of a grim environment outside the boundaries of the mall, though – major roads and industrial zones in several directions.
It does have Auckland’s forgotten maunga on the other side of the motorway – Mutukaroa. Big bit of park that’s almost totally inaccessible.
The offices are happening, quite possibly beginning before the retail according to the Kiwi presentation.
Kiwi are a specialist retail/ office investor, so apartments aren’t usually something they’d look at. They’ve said previously that they’re open to the idea of apartments at Sylvia Park, but they’d probably get another company involved to do that development. Similar story to The Warehouse in Newmarket – they’re a retailer and don’t want to do a major apartment/ mixed use development themselves, so they’re selling their property to someone who does want to do the development, and The Warehouse will be a tenant there.
All of you complaining about having too much parking are actually quite comical. Its a Mall, and that simply implies people drive there to buy goods and products that you need a car for…..why would the Mall want to reduce carparks? They want to encourage people to buy up large. What needs sorting is the ridiculous 2 lanes each way on the motorway. Needs to be 3.
“Its a Mall, and that simply implies people drive there to buy goods and products that you need a car for”
Does it? Count up all of the times you have been to a mall this year, and then count the number of times that you have bought more than say 10 plastic bags full.
The numbers were probably about 30 and 1? So for 9&% of trips to the mall a car isn’t needed.
Lived in Sydney for 6yrs. Went to a mall practically every weekend. Never owned a car. Bought plenty of stuff though that I carried back home.
Could you tell me how you got the 3-piece bed suite in the back of the Corolla? Or, like me in Sydney, you probably got it delivered when you realized it wouldn’t fit?
Most trips to a mall by most people end up with little more than a few plastic bags to carry. Some will need delivering. The rest fits in the middle, yes probably with a car. So having a car park for every single person who wants to go the mall is lunacy. As Sylvia Park realize.
Such an absolute waste not to properly integrate the sylvia park station into the Mall. A huge waste. It wouldn’t even cost that much as well. Kiwi Property grow a few brain cells and think outside the box. Of course carparks are important but during the big annual christmas and new years sales, Sylvia Park is a parking disaster. Cars parked on footpaths and roundabouts is not a sign of forward thinking progress.
What great idea, not! As a photographer showing our free country to the world you seem to have no idea about the real outside life and how your grim and locked in mentality will cause to normal everyday people to never find good things. Did you mention what your real mo really is to make it all just exclusive for well off instead of people who need things for real and not life as a wrapping? The train station stays outside as it should!
I live across the road from Sylvia Park. For me some really forward thinking ideas would be the following.
– Connect train station to the mall itself. As mentioned by Greg N access to the station is bad. Using the lift to get to the trains when having a baby stroller really sucks as it’s so small and sometimes people wee in the lift in the early hours so it’s not desirable. Also going through there as a car user is a pain as people dawdle across the zebra crossing at their own pace and slow all the cars trying to go past.
A sheltered overbridge linked directly to the station makes sense or otherwise dig out the existing angled parking outside the police office and connect a tunnel to the station. Whichever is cheaper will help tremendously.
– Same thing as above to connect up to Apex centre across the road on Mt Wellington Highway.
Utterly stupid to not have both of these connected up in future.
– Integrate a mixed transport hub or clip on some stairs on the SE highway that goes through Sylvia Park. Looking at Phase 2 & Phase 3 of Sylvia Park’s proposed expansion being next to the highway it would be an absolute no brainer to think forward and put some transport terminals to on ground level and above connected to the SE highway.
– KPT to purchase Coca Cola’s buildings and land on the other side of the train line. Just because they could if they wanted to. Convert it all into terraced housing/apartments with an open park at ground level and sheltered areas.
Stage 5 seems to be getting underway.