Meet You at the Market / The trio behind Christchurch’s Riverside Market *
Christchurch’s new Riverside Market is on track to open this spring. We meet the
three men behind this exciting addition coming soon to the central city.
Nothing quite brings a plan to life than actually seeing it take shape on the ground. It is quite a revelation to stand inside the Riverside Market building at the top end of Cashel Mall, now that the shell is up and the fit-out phase is about to commence.
Christchurch property investors Richard Peebles, Kris Inglis and Mike Percasky invited latitude to take a close-up look at progress. The scale of what’s coming is really impressive: 3500 sqm of bustling farmers’ market under one roof.
We start our tour from newly formed Market Lane, off Oxford Terrace. Inside, the building crew from Consortium Construction is hard at work. Stretching before us is an expansive ground floor with temporary stairs to the upper mezzanine level. Above is the building’s lofty roof.
Within a few months, this will be a bustling hub of fresh organic food and produce: a seven-day market with 30 independent food outlets and 40 fresh produce stalls. Richard, Kris and Mike have been living and breathing this project for years now and know what’s planned for every square inch of the place.
‘The Butcher’s Mistress will be here,’ Mike says, pointing
at a space to our left. ‘It’ll have a bar at one end, so you’ll be able to choose a cut of meat and then enjoy a beer. It’s making the kind of connection we want.’
Anchoring the opposite corner will be the market’s fishmonger, Little Fish Co, side by side with Christchurch favourite, Mediterranean Food Co. Dimitris is another iconic name among many. Fresh baked goods and coffee businesses will fill another corner. Local rising stars from Little High Eatery will be trading at Riverside too, such as Noodle Monk, Bacon Brothers and Eightgrains.
Ready-to-eat food operators will be grouped around the outside of the ground floor, with the middle reserved for all the produce stalls. ‘Our biggest hurdle is convincing the small local producers that we’re not a big ugly corporate monster,’ says Richard. ‘We want the guys growing their tomatoes and peaches or other local produce to get in touch. We have shortterm leases available and rents are reasonable.’
Upstairs will be courtyard seating for 300 people, along with a cook school (Riverside Kitchen), restaurants, bars and a sheltered outdoor terrace overlooking Oxford Terrace. Richard Castro, who moved from Queenstown with his
family to open El Fogón and Caribe Latin Kitchen at Little High Eatery, has the signature space upstairs with his new restaurant, Castro’s. Richard is looking forward to when he can sit on the balcony, taking in the life and vitality of the market below, while enjoying buskers or a school choir. A pop-up mezzanine area has been set aside specifically for performers and its décor will be themed to echo the markets of Verona.
‘There’s so much support from everyone we’ve talked to about the market. I mentioned to a friend of mine at a local law firm that we wanted to host a school choir competition here and so now they’ve indicated they may sponsor it.
We’ll have choirs singing here and their families will come to see them. It just really helps to build that whole sense of community – we truly believe this is going to be the heart of the city.’
As well as the market itself, there’s adjacent Riverside Lanes that will provide complementary boutique retail and extended options for eating out. Hugo Boss, Sergios and Alchemy Equipment will pack a high-end punch off Cashel Mall but there will be plenty more to discover along Riverside Lane that links through to the market.
‘The laneways reflect that Melbourne influence, of wanting to activate the interiors of city blocks. Market
Lane will connect through to Ballantynes, the Guthrey
Centre and council car park, while Riverside Lane will connect to the main entrance on Cashel Mall. There will be a lot of interesting things going on along the lanes. We’ve got everything from a tattooist and a guys’ shearing shed [Manscape] through to streetwear, jewellery and ice cream [Ben & Jerry’s].’
Richard was a huge fan of the container mall and, in fact, he, Kris and Mike ran that for a year, during the leadup to construction getting started. There are still a few food trucks along the City Promenade and Friendship Park by the Riverside development. In fact, these operators will move into the market once it’s open.
Supporting local growers and small businesses is a huge part of what this project is all about.
‘Really the key to all developments is securing really goodquality, interesting and authentic tenants with a great track record who buy into the vision of the development,’ Kris says. ‘At Riverside we have genuinely secured some of the best food, produce and hospitality operators in the city who are all on board with creating a vibrant market.’
There’s an environmental edge to this market as well: buying local feeds into a reduced carbon footprint. What’s more, the goal will be to minimise food packaging and waste and to compost or recycle as much of that waste as possible.
Shepherding the development along with passionate commitment is Riverside’s project manager Chris Spragg. Consortium Construction’s site manager Watene Pikia is consummately leading the building team. Architectural designer John Ayers completed Riverside’s conceptual design, while Kirk Roberts ( Jade Kirk) fleshed out the final form and structure. There are literally hundreds of other people – builders, tradespeople and designers – involved with Riverside.
Kris, Mike and Richard all share a history of property development and investment, but were first brought together
There are still a few food trucks by the Riverside development. In fact, these operators will move into the market once it’s open.
by Bill Willis, who got them involved with the $50 million McKenzie & Willis redevelopment at 181 High Street. In many ways, Riverside is a continuation of what they rolled out there, with Little High Eatery operating as a popular international hub of local and family-run food businesses.
The epic story of how they saved and secured the iconic McKenzie & Willis Building facade would require another feature all of its own.
Their passion for holding onto character and local history is reflected too in their preservation and restoration of the Duncan’s Buildings’ historic facade, complemented by new shop and office spaces behind it. The original 1905 buildings were badly damaged in the 2011 earthquakes.
This has been another labour of love project, which is set to further reinvigorate the High Street end of the city. Recycled bricks were used to create a rear facade that’s in sync with the old heritage vibe to such an extent that some people have mistakenly assumed the whole development is a restored old building.
‘It’s a new building, but it doesn’t look like it,’ says Mike. ‘We wanted to build something sympathetic to the heritage of the original.’
Theirs is not a mainstream corporate approach. Exciting and vibrant development is what floats their boat. Even as they worked on their vision for High Street, these three were talking about how great a city farmer’s market would be for Christchurch.
‘The vision for Riverside Market is to make it into a world-class inner-city food and produce market that rivals those you see in Europe, the USA and Australia,’ Kris says. ‘We really want to create something amazing for the city that people will feel a real connection to. We believe it will provide a unique inner-city experience for locals and visitors to Christchurch, providing a reliable source of fresh, organic, locally-grown food.’
Riverside is being developed on the most expensive land in the city. A big multi-storey hotel development would have been a lot easier. Yet they knew from looking at places like New York, Melbourne, Adelaide and Copenhagen that a farmers’ market would be the best way to restore bustling life and vitality to the central city.
‘We wanted to create a place where people would feel comfortable to hang out, a kind of “third home” to complement people’s actual homes and workplaces,’ Mike says. Richard recalls how enthusiastically Ōtākaro’s former chief executive Albert Brantley embraced the idea. ‘We provided so much research showing the positive impact of farmers’ markets in towns and cities and how many people they bring – nothing attracts people like a market.’The whole project has been a massive evolution, a hugely complex jigsaw puzzle of planning and problem solving.
‘There’s a bit of pressure around getting this market right so that it’s something amazing and unique,’ says Richard. ‘We’re constantly thinking about how to make it more interesting and cool by adding character and flavour. We’re setting the bar as high as we can.’ Kris agrees, observing that the market will need to be world-class and with an energy and vibrancy to stand the test of time.
Once Riverside is open, they hope it will give people even more of a reason to come in and explore the central city.
‘We believe it will provide a unique inner-city experience, providing a reliable source of fresh, organic, locally-grown food.’