Westfield Riccarton, also known by its former name Riccarton Mall, is a large retail complex located in the

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

suburb of

Riccarton Riccarton may refer to: New Zealand * Riccarton, New Zealand, a suburb of Christchurch ** Riccarton (New Zealand electorate), the electorate named after it ** The location of Riccarton Race Course * a locality on the Taieri Plains in Otago Scotlan ...

. First opened on 3 November 1965, it is Christchurch's oldest shopping mall. The complex is currently anchored by Farmers,

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

Pak'nSave PAK'nSAVE (stylised PAK'nSAVE, originally PAK 'N SAVE) is a New Zealand discount food warehouse chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative. It is one of the three main supermarket chains, alongside Countdown and New World. There are 56 stor ...

and

Hoyts The Hoyts Group of companies in Australia and New Zealand includes Hoyts Cinemas and Val Morgan. Hoyts operates more than 450 cinema screens and 55,000 seats, making it Australia's second largest movie exhibitor after Event Hospita ...

History

Early history

Construction of Riccarton Mall began in February 1965. It was officially opened by

John McAlpine Sir John Kenneth McAlpine (21 July 1906 – 11 January 1984) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. He was the Member of Parliament for Selwyn from 1946 to 1966, when he retired. Biography McAlpine was born in Christ ...

, MP for Selwyn and Minister of Transport, on 2 November 1965 and opened to shoppers the following day. The initial mall covered and cost £525,000 to construct ($22.6 million in December 2021 dollars). It contained 20 retailers including three

anchor tenant In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. W ...

s: The Farmers' supermarket and department store (owned by the New Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Association of Canterbury), a

Four Square Four square is a team sport played among two teams with two players each on a square court divided into four quadrants: A, B, C, and D (usually numbers 3, 4, 2, and 1, respectively, depending on the court.) The square that a player gets to bef ...

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

supermarket, and a McKenzie's department store. A 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 The Farmers Trading Company Ltd (branded as Farmers) is a New Zealand mid-market department store chain. Headquartered in Flat Bush, Auckland, Farmers operates 59 stores across New Zealand, specialising in family fashion, beauty, homewares, fur ...

of Auckland. A new New World supermarket opened in July 1974, followed two months later by a extension housing four stores, bringing the mall to . In November 1979, a third major extension opened and expanded the mall to . The expansion included a 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

JPG Farmers Riccarton main entrance 2016

In 2003 the

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio ...

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 The Hoyts Group of companies in Australia and New Zealand includes Hoyts Cinemas and Val Morgan. Hoyts operates more than 450 cinema screens and 55,000 seats, making it Australia's second largest movie exhibitor after Event Hospita ...

multiplex Multiplex may refer to: * Multiplex (automobile), a former American car make * Multiplex (comics), a DC comic book supervillain * Multiplex (company), a global contracting and development company * Multiplex (assay), a biological assay which measu ...

, 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

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

External links

* {{Shopping centres in New Zealand Shopping centres in New Zealand Shopping malls established in 1965

Buildings and structures in Christchurch 1960s architecture in New Zealand

History

Early history

Westfield era

See also

References

External links