Westfield Riccarton

History

Early history

Construction of Riccarton Mall began in February 1965. It was officially opened by John McAlpine, MP for Selwyn and Minister of Transport, on 2 November 1965 and opened to shoppers the following day. The initial mall covered 67000 sqft and cost £525,000 to construct ($22.6 million in December 2021 dollars). It contained 20 retailers including three anchor tenants: The Farmers' supermarket and department store (owned by the New Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Association of Canterbury), a Four Square-New World supermarket, and a McKenzie's department store.

A 20000 sqft extension to the mall opened in November 1970 along with a fourth anchor tenant: Calder Mackay & Co. department store, which at the time had just been acquired by the Farmers Trading Company of Auckland. A new 20000 sqft New World supermarket opened in July 1974, followed two months later by a 10000 sqft extension housing four stores, bringing the mall to 123000 sqft.

In November 1979, a third major extension opened and expanded the mall to 19070 m2. The expansion included a 460 m2 Smiths City Market and 12 stores, bringing the mall to 50 stores.

Riccarton Mall was extensively remodeled in 1992 with most stores relocating to new premises within the mall; Farmers Trading Company (now simply Farmers) is one of the few stores to remain in its original location. The remodel introduced a food court into the mall and a new rooftop car park.

Westfield era

In 2003 the Westfield Group began a NZD$90 million redevelopment of the shopping centre which was completed in 2005. A strong focus of the redevelopment was a leisure component, with the introduction of the six-screen Hoyts Cinema multiplex, which features the second-largest projection screen in New Zealand. In addition to the cinema, a restaurant and café area was constructed at the Rotherham Street end of the mall.

On 28 May 2009, the mall opened phase one of a new $75m expansion.

The latest redevelopment included 40 new retailers and a new café court. An additional cinema screen was added to the existing Hoyts Multiplex. The first stage of development, a new four-level car park building with space for 400 cars, was completed in January 2009. The expansion increased the size of the mall to approximately 54,000 square metres.

Annual sales for the full year 2018 were $535.6 million.

References

References

1. "Canterbury places – North and west Christchurch". Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
2. "Westfield Riccarton Shopping Centre".
3. (2 November 1965). "Grand Carnival Opening - Riccarton Mall". [[The Press]].
4. "Inflation calculator".
5. (5 October 1970). "Extension of mall". [[The Press]].
6. (10 September 1974). "Extension of Mall". [[The Press]].
7. (13 November 1979). "A third expansion since 1965 takes place at Riccarton". [[The Press]].
8. (27 May 2009). "Westfield Riccarton - Phase One Of Redevelopment Completed". Voxy.
9. "Four biggest NZ malls a focus for Scentre in $790m property expansion".