It is always good to do a quick round up of development progress in central New Brighton leading to Christmas brought to you by the New Brighton Residents Assn…
Starting with the existing housing projects, these have progressed quickly and the first stages of some of them will be completed next month and the smaller ones likely to be completed by March 2023 and others in about 12 months adding around 200 to the housing stock.
With the pre-made trusses and construction methods, most have made initial fast progress but then run into labour and supply challenges, further complicated by pressure on potential buyers from increased mortgage rates and inflation.
Overall, it has been full steam ahead, despite a continuing degree of post-Covid uncertainty.
‘Coastal Sounds’ on the corner of Rawhiti and Marine Pde is well advanced with a couple of the two, three and four premium bedroom apartments left for sale from the nine.
Further down Rawhiti towards the New Brighton rugby club rooms ‘Eastern Rise’ was sold from the plans and should be finished by the end of this year.
Close by on Marine is the Chalfont Development with six upmarket 3-bedroom town houses past the halfway point in construction.
Williams Corp has two projects on the go on Marine Pde with the 37-apartment north site is expected to be completed in February 2023 and the 58-townhouse build south of the Mall due for habitation in September 2023 (they also have a site on Leaver Tce in North New Brighton).
Amongst these multi- apartment builds, individual new coastal homes are popping up along the Parade where old baches gradually disappear and owners and builders continue to fill in the gaps adding further value to the coastal strip.
Opposite the foreshore beach children’s whale playground there is a sign on a section (eastern side of Countdown) advertising the lease of a commercial opportunity for the ‘Brighton Beach’ development. This is likely to be one of first new commercial enterprises at the top end of the mall on Marine Parade.
This will feature a retail (hospitality?) opportunity on the ground floor linking access to the beach from the supermarket carpark, and above 2-upmarket apartments with fantastic views of Pegasus Bay.
Just a few doors down the proposed ‘Beach House’ retail/bar/distillery is still proceeding through the council consent process and owner Hayden Clavis says good progress is being made.
At the top end of the New Brighton Mall on the opposite side, the Harris family and recent new owners of Pierside (South of India, Penguin Arms, Level One), are doing due diligence on the potential purchase of the western end of that block which includes the Home & Castle hardware and U-Save Variety shops.
Robbie Harris says they are working on a concept plan for the whole area including where the Saturday market food stalls are normally located, but in the meantime have been focusing on the upgrade of the Marine Pde end with repairs including a new roof and repaint etc.
Midway down the Mall is the Council’s LTP (Long Term Plan) goal to put through the Oram Av extension (across Beresford northwards to link with Hawke St through the carpark) and if there is one sour note in overall New Brighton progress, this is it.
The Council now own the Westpac Trust building. This will be demolished next year, and a temporary pedestrian walkway created in the gap. The carpark on the north side of the bank however belongs to the owner of the adjacent old Savemart building. Negotiations with this person involving the Council and previously with DCL have not made great progress over several years and this appears unlikely to change any time soon.
This is a major impediment to the rebirth of the condensed vibrant mall and could interfere with the potential plan for Countdown to move west wards when its lease runs out on the current site. The supermarket may consider a new site altogether if it remains in New Brighton.
Almost directly across the mall in the building where the old Two Dollar shop was located, owner Murray Irvine has a new tenant lined up to occupy that space, although he is anticipating selling the building (also housing the very popular Phad Thai restaurant) and says after 21 years wants to spend more time with his family.
At the river end of the mall is the 74 townhouse ‘Seaview’ village with the first stage likely to be finished by the end of this year and landscaping well underway including the creation of one of two large reserves.
Finally in this pre-Christmas update we come to the new Pages Road bridge, a significant part of the New Brighton regeneration. This involves a number of considerations including the likely closure of access into the top end of Owles Tce and direct entry onto Hawke St. As part of its design consideration will be given to pedestrian and cyclists, the future of eastern end of New Brighton Rd, and how it will cope with efficient evacuation in the event of a tsunami for instance.
As a result, further complexities and staff resource shortages have delayed the project and the new deadline is to brief the (public excluded) Community Board around Easter 2023. Wider public engagement will follow sometime after this meeting.
Underlying this largely construction update, exist other community orientated initiatives moving forward including the hard-working team looking at the options for how the two-million-dollar CEAT funding will be spent. Expect some announcement in the foreseeable future as progress has been reported to be near a decision point.
Overall, a very good report card for New Brighton and the NBRA have marked it a B+ with the comment “on the right track” to an ‘A’.