Shirley Homebase shopping centre expansion

On the 24th of March, consent was granted for the Homebase shopping centre on Marshland Road to undergo an expansion.

This expansion will take an extra 24,000 square metres of development on top of the existing 17,500 square metres it already occupies, making the shopping centre the biggest large-format retail site in Christchurch.

Max and Glen Percasky, the brothers that developed The Palms shopping centre in the 1990s will also develop this expansion and Colliers will undertake the leasing of the site.

The Percasky brothers’ idea behind the expansion is to save residents from the eastern side of Christchurch from driving a far distance just to get to a retail site and give them more choices. 

Other than Eastgate and The Palms from Belfast down to Sumner there aren’t any retail sites that residents have quick and easy access to. 

In comparison, the western side of Christchurch has a similar population and land mass yet it has many more shopping centres including Riccarton mall, Hornby Hub and Northlands mall.

Colliers National Retail Consultant Evan Harris says that the developers are eastern Christchurch guys who created The Palms for the same reason of bringing what the west already has to the east.

The brothers also helped with the development of Riverside Markets and Little High in the Christchurch CBD.

Multiple concerns have been raised around the idea of building even more shopping centres and what will happen to The Palms just down the road. 

Christchurch has under one square metre of shopping centres per head of population which happens to be higher than the other cities in New Zealand, but less than other countries like Australia with two square metres per head of population.

When it comes down to how The Palms will be affected Colliers believes that The Homebase and The Palms will complement each other.

Harris says the shopping centres will have a different role with The Homebase being a large format site and The Palms being small specialty stores.

This can be compared to Northlands and North Link or Westfield Riccarton and Tower Junction and how they are complementary to each other.

The Palms have declined to comment on the situation at this stage.

The next steps for the development are finalising the plan with the architects and finishing discussions with the key tenants.

Evan Harris says a supermarket will be going into the shopping centre but other than that nothing is set in stone and they are well into the planning process.