‘It’s deathly quiet in here’
MALL TALK: End of the road for Johnsonville Shopping Centre?
Wellington’s Johnsonville Shopping Centre is dying a slow death while its owners continue to sit on plans for a $300 million expansion, tenants say.
At least half a dozen retailers have left the mall in the past two years as the once-vibrant heart of the northern suburbs bleeds customers.
Tenants claim that in the past year visitor numbers to the mall have fallen by between 10,000 and 12,000 a month. The Dominion Post has seen figures that show 14,417 fewer visitors to the mall in March from a year ago.
About four retail spaces at the mall sit vacant.
But while foot traffic through the mall is declining rapidly, rents are not, and businesses are beginning to get frustrated.
One mall tenant, who did not want to be named, said at least half a dozen businesses had left since 2014, and some had been replaced by itinerant tenants that lasted only a couple of months.
Big-name stores such as Vodafone had left, while Pacific Jewellers packed its bags a few weeks ago, after 27 years in the Johnsonville community, he said.
‘‘There’s nothing left to attract customers . . . there’s nothing there for them any more.’’
A combination of factors had ‘‘screwed the place’’, he said, beginning with Wellington City Council’s reluctance to support the mall’s expansion back in 2007 because of fears it would eat into the profits of shops along the city’s Golden Mile.
Then the global financial crisis put the brakes on expansion. Now the mall’s owners were simply ‘‘fiddling while Rome burns’’.
Mall owner Stride Property – formerly DNZ – was given resource consent in 2009 to increase the mall from 10,000 square metres to a 32,000sqm two-level centre, at a cost of about $300m.
Tenant Judy Nguyen, who owns the 4 Seasons Nail salon and Pho Bac Vietnamese restaurant, said she moved into the mall in 2009 because of the hype around the redevelopment.
But seven years later, she is on the verge of leaving, as she faces rising rents and the apparent lack of a desire to give the mall a facelift.
Meanwhile, the drop in visitors had been noticeable. ‘‘Many of my customers say, ‘You’re the only reason we come here. There’s nothing else we want to buy’.’’
‘‘I’m really struggling [with the restaurant] next door. On a Thursday and Friday night, it’s deathly quiet in here.’’
Johnsonville’s struggles mirror the recent predicament of Wainuiomata Shopping Centre, which lost four tenants in quick succession, leaving residents worried the centre could fail.
Stride chief executive Peter Alexander declined to comment on the frustrations of his tenants, saying the company was in regular communication with them about its plans.
A number of factors, such as tenant demand and construction costs, needed to ‘‘align’’ before the company could move forward with expansion, he said. ‘‘This is a big financial commitment and a complex development issue.’’
Wellington Deputy Mayor and northern ward councillor Justin Lester said the redevelopment was the No 1 priority of most people in the northern suburbs.
He felt it would eventually go ahead, but believed it would probably be a more modest upgrade than the $300m proposed earlier.
It was possible more modest redevelopment plans would require an amendment to Stride’s resource consent, but Lester said this could be sorted in a matter of months if necessary.
Alexander would not comment on whether the company would go through the resource consent process again, simply stating the existing consent was live until 2023.