STAKEHOLDER NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER 2024
IN THIS EDITION
OVERVIEW
A Message From Our Managing Director - Scott Gibbons
Summer is upon us and it has once again been a busy quarter at Gibbons in the lead up to the holidays. It has been a long and tough year and I am sure you will all resonate with that feeling. We have worked hard around supporting our tenants and our team through exemplary delivery.
In late September, we celebrated our Grand Opening at Nelson Junction, hosted in partnership with JB Hi-Fi and supported by all our tenants in the complex. The was a different style for what we usually do as our Annual Stakeholder Function for 2024. Our public supporters and shoppers in Nelson remain a key stakeholder to the success of our retail tenants' businesses and we saw the value in placing the spotlight on them. Stage 2 of the Nelson Junction is now underway with commencement of construction of the new Woolworths supermarket due to late 2025. This addition will add to the convenience and vibrance of the shopping destination.
This quarter we have also been focussing on further development of our Berryfields Crossing on Lower Queen Street, Richmond. The focus of this next Stage will be a new mixed Commercial and Quick Service Retail complex (including a popular grocery brand) , to sit adjacent to the established Food & Beverage and Entertainment already on the site. Construction will commence sometime during mid-2025.
We continue to support our tenants through our Facebook pages and marketing for the Gibbons Holdings page and the Centre pages. We encourage you to share up-to-date information with us in order to foster our community partner relationships and networks.
It has been refreshing to see some financial relief in the economic climate with some lowering of interest rates and that might lend itself for a little bit of a different outlook for 2025 albeit I think there is still a lot of work to be done 'together' with our tenants to understand where their pinch points are and how we can help.
Internally in summary, we welcomed Andy Clinton to our team as our new Property Portfolio Manager. Andy has a long history of property management, sales and investment throughout both the UK and the Nelson Tasman Region. Andy has settled well into the Gibbons team and if you haven't connected yet with Andy through discussions, I am sure you will in the New Year.
We have also embarked and completed several projects across the business including: (1) a Procurement Review which has translated into a review of the scope, price and necessity for some of the expenditure we have around our sites; (2) Insurance Review - completing an RFP across four insurance companies; (3) Internal systems used focussing on exemplary delivery; and (4) Carrying out a full review and revamp of our Risk Management systems. We took advantage of a fresh pair of eyes from our CFO Daryl Wehner who led the charge to update our Risk Matrix and scoring methodology. Being proactive in planning, limits our reactive time in an emergency, and this means better solutions for our tenants and stakeholders if that should occur. We look forward to sharing with you some of these conclusions and improvements with you in the New Year.
We have successfully produced another thorough Annual Report and Sustainability Report which has been shared amongst our partners in the financial institutions.
As Christmas approaches, we take this opportunity to thank all our stakeholders for all the support you have shown to Gibbons during the year. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Enjoy time with your families and friends and we look forward to working with you in 2025.
Scott Gibbons - Managing Director
SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITY
Getting behind Gumboot Friday
This year, in lieu of traditional Christmas gifts, we chose to support the invaluable services provided by Gumboot Friday with a $5000 donation given on behalf of our stakeholders. Their commitment to delivering immediate, free counselling to Kiwis aged 5 to 25 is truly inspiring. Since 2019, Gumboot Friday has provided more than 100,000 therapy sessions to young Kiwis.
This donation represents the collective goodwill of our company, tenants, and key stakeholders who believe in the power of coming together to make a positive impact.
As a family and business, we actively support a range of initiatives that have a lasting positive impact on the communities in which we operate. If you would like to see more of what we do in our community, visit:
ESG | Sustainability
EVs and EV Chargers at our Retail Centres
As part of our commitment to sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint, Gibbons have recently added two EVs and one hybrid to our fleet of cars. Like many businesses, our fleet of vehicles make up a large part of our carbon footprint, and we are hoping to see some real positive change with the introduction of these new EVs. And because our power supply at our office (where the cars are mainly charged) is through Ecotricity’s certified carbon zero electricity, we will have actual near-zero carbon operating emissions for these vehicles.
Also, in our public shopping centres, we have committed to bringing EV chargers for public use where the technical specifications allow us to do so. In June 2023, two EV chargers went live through our partnership with JOLT at our Stoneridge on Lunn site in Auckland, replacing a faulty first-generation charger that was installed in 2020. And in October this year, six new generation V4 Tesla Superchargers went live at our Nelson Junction retail centre. These new Tesla Superchargers are the first of their kind in New Zealand, offering peak charging rates of up to 250kW per vehicle and are available for non-Tesla EVs as well (with the Tesla app). We are excited by this new technology on our sites and what it can offer our stakeholders.
DEVELOPMENTS | Spring Update
Our Developments
Nelson Junction
Nelson Junction is charging ahead, and as Stage 1 comes to a close, our Stage 2 Woolworths is ramping up. All consents are now approved by council, construction is underway and delivery is targeted for October 2025.
This supermarket is a bit different than a typical supermarket build in that we have registered it with the New Zealand Green Building Council’s Green Star programme, targeting a 4-star rating. This means that the supermarket must meet a number of mandatory benchmarks for a lower-carbon, higher-performing building. On average, Green Star buildings use 66 percent less energy and 51 percent less water than typical buildings, savings that are both good for tenants and the environment. It is exciting to see this project coming together at the forefront of green building practices.
Berryfields Crossing
Berryfields Crossing is also charging ahead with its Stage 2 development “Commercial Corner,” which fronts the prominent corner of Lower Queen Street and Berryfield Drive and has great visibility from both. This 2000m2 building will be a mix of Commercial and Quick Service Retail offerings and sits adjacent to the popular Silky Otter Cinemas and established eateries Joe’s Garage, Eat Italy Ristorante, and Burger N Beast.
Four of these tenancies are already Under Offer and we are still working closely with a popular grocery brand, so the development is progressing very quickly! These great new offerings will ensure that Berryfields Crossing is the premier community hub for Richmond West for years to come.
Lower Queen Street
In September, we handed over the latest build at Lower Queen Street Industrial Park, a new office, training and staff complex for Waimea Group. They approached us in November of last year about needing a dedicated staff breakout and training space as well as open plan offices as they had outgrown their current facilities.
In less than 10 months, we were able to reach an agreement, produce a bespoke design, and construct the building for them so they could have their new facilities before Christmas this year. It was a great coordinated project by our development, design and construction teams, and we are proud of our ability to work fast and efficiently, and turn out a first-rate facility.
Vista Heights
With interest rates rolling back, we are starting to see some more enquiries at Vista Heights, Gibbons’ residential development in Bishopdale, Nelson. We currently have five sections ready for sale with beautiful views to Waimea Estuary, Rabbit Island and out to Mount Arthur. And we have recently had house concept designs and imagery completed for these sites to help stakeholders better visualise the possibilities. With sunshine and sea views on Nelson’s doorstep, what more could you ask for?
Nelson Junction Grand Opening
TENANT UPDATE | Showcase
On 28 September, Nelson Junction held its Grand Opening in conjunction with JB Hi-Fi and generously supported by all our tenants at Nelson Junction. The day was abuzz with a local “battle of the bands” live music, spot prizes for all shoppers, and massive in-store specials. We were overwhelmed with the support from the community and the sheer volume of people that came to the event and hoped everyone had as much fun as we did in showcasing the centre to our stakeholders.
New World Motueka Celebrates 30 Years
30 years ago, on 29 November 1994, New World Motueka opened their doors. Gibbons purchased the site in the early 1990’s from Alister Clark and Carl McCrae. Alister was the previous operator of the small Keystores site on the High Street frontage adjacent to the New World site, and he was a great support in the community, delivering groceries to customers’ cars and doing home deliveries to the elderly around Motueka.
After the purchase of the site, Gibbons proceeded to obtain Resource Consent for a supermarket and build the new store for Alister and Helen Clark, completing it in 1994. Over the years, the store has had two extensions, forward and sideways; the first under the Clark’s ownership and the latter under Bruce and Shelley Miller who took over the business in 2004. More recently, Simon and Nicola Hollyer have bought the business in 2022 and have carried out extensive renovations and upgrades on the interiors. And although it may look different than when the shop first opened, you can still get your groceries delivered to your car with “Click and Collect.”
We are proud to have been part of this business over the last 30 years and supporting the owners throughout their growth and challenges.
Opportunities
Here are some new and exciting leasing opportunities within our portfolio if you are looking to expand or know of someone who would like to join our tenant family. Click on the link for more info. We’d love to hear from you.
