Brighton Building Boom

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30497, 20 July 1964, Page 8

Brighton Building Boom

The latest moves in the building boom at New Brighton are the erecting of a wholesale grocery warehouse, the start on a new, bigger building . for Woolworths. Ltd., and the purchase and clearing of a big site for a supermarket and arcade of six shops. All this activity is going on within 100 yards in the main shopping street, Seaview road. This is the area where the Self-Help Co-operative, Ltd., recently opened its new “Shoppers’ Fair Supermarket.” The store, with a floor area lof 6000 square feet, is the i company's biggest in New to date, although Target premises are planned for the North Island. From the butchers’ point of view, this store has increased competition by introducing—for the first time in New Brighton—a fresh meat sec tion where housewives can buy almost any cut. On the north side of the .street, next to the school baths, a big grocery warehouse is being built for Boyds i Brothers and Kirk (top photo graph). I.GA. has taken ovei this firm and its warehouse ir Lichfield street is being sold Hall Moved Almost opposite, I.G.A. haf purchased three sections. The j Salvation Army hall was moved from one of the sec tions on Thursday. A doc tor’s house on another of the sections is to be demolished or removed. I.G.A. plans to build ? supermarket on the eastern portion of the site. This wil’ be leased or owned by « i member of the alliance. If may be opened before next t Easter.

Separated from the supermarket by a right-of-way and service lane, will be a shop ping arcade, containing six or eight shops, if present plans remain unchanged.

The new building for Woolworths, Ltd., on the south side of Seaview road (lower photograph) is expected to be open before Christmas. The new building is next to the existing store which is only five years old The old building will be demolished and replaced and then the branch of the firm will extend into super market foodstuffs. This activity follows the recent expansion of the pre-

raises of J. R. McKenzie, Ltd., in the same area of Seaview road. Further east along the road, the New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative Association of Canterbury has bought the block of three shops on the corner of Oram avenue and Seaview road. New Store The firm will not take possession of the shops this year, but is expected to have a new big store well on the way to completion by the end of next year. By the end of next year, capital expenditure on buying of land and erection of stores in Seaview road will have exceeded £250,000. Rumours have been rife in the shopping centre recently

about plans to erect yet another big store on the site at present occupied by a used car dealer. A spokesman for the company owning the land, however, said that no approach had been made by any purchaser in recent weeks. There had been several approaches this year, “but no money has been paid to us yet.”