THE PRESS - First a centre of industry and then a strip lined by car yards, Moorhouse Avenue in Christchurch is changing again. Sparked by the construction of a major new Lincoln Road business park and the $12 million deviation linking it directly to Blenheim Road, the avenue is appreciating in value and new users are moving in. Already, the deviation itself is lined with expensive new developments by Ngai Tahu Properties. Other tenants have signed up for space in DY Investments and Calder Stewart’s $80m Hazeldean Business Park. “It’s changing the face of Moorhouse Avenue,” says Simes Ltd’s director of commercial sales and leasing, Greg Bevin. “People are saying that’s going to have a positive spin-off effect, and maybe they should position themselves down there.” The shift has pushed up land prices on the avenue, with buyers now paying over $900 a square metre for commercial sites, and some owners said to be looking for $1000 a square metre to sell. Much of the tenant interest is coming from big box retailers who are increasingly moving in alongside the car yards. However, prices are not yet too high for car dealers, Bevin says. “

A lot of the yards are owner occupied and being good car boys they know the value of a dollar.” On the eastern side of the Colombo Street overbridge, Moorhouse Central owners Lilly Cooper and James Davies are partway through a major revamp to build what will be Progessive Enterprises’ largest supermarket, a new retail/office block, and a foodcourt which is already trading. The pair bought the property two years ago for $14 million from a consortium of Dunedin investors before embarking on the rebuild. At the other end of the avenue, several bulk retail blocks including the Harvey Norman Centre and Moorhouse City are full, with high demand for space. This end of the street is dominated by homewares tenants and now houses the likes of Smiths City, Bond and Bond, Noel Leeming, Power Store, and Harvey Norman itself. Hunter Furniture is also about to move into premises vacated by Mitre 10’s move to its new Ferrymead superstore. Brent Bailey of Colliers International Christchurch says prices along the street have risen in line with the rents bulk retailers will pay for a good spot with plenty of shoppers driving past. “You’ve just got to look at the lack of vacancies along there - it’s clear that demand is high. “There’s interest nationally in Moorhouse Avenue, for national operators arriving in Christchurch, it would certainly be on their shopping list.” Meanwhile at the western end of the avenue, developer Lindsay O’Donnell is soliciting tenant and investor interest for the new office building he is planning overlooking Hagley Park. The five-storey building has been several years in the planning and will be built on the site of an industrial warehouse.

Properties now for sale along Moorhouse Avenue include: A one-hectare retail complex on 11 titles at 220 Moorhouse Avenue owned by a group of investors under the name Arvensis Holdings Ltd. The block houses retailers Bedpost and Animates, while Hunter Furniture is about to shift in from its showroom in Riccarton Road. The property brings in an annual rent of almost $750,000. Central-city yard - A vacant yard used as a commercial carpark is for sale in central Christchurch. The Allen Street property covers l2l7sq in three titles and is leased to Christchurch Polytechnic. Marketing agent Paul Marshall, of Simes, says the property could eventually be developed.