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Northwest
The ghosts are gone and NorthWest Shopping Mall is busier than ever thanks to Costco. (Photo: Chris Schulz / Treatment: Bianca Cross)

BusinessNovember 16, 2022

How Costco ruined my beloved ‘ghost mall’

Northwest
The ghosts are gone and NorthWest Shopping Mall is busier than ever thanks to Costco. (Photo: Chris Schulz / Treatment: Bianca Cross)

Once a quiet place used by only those in the know, NorthWest mall has become a shopping gauntlet that’s only getting more frantic. The reason? Bulk bargains.

You’d glide in off the Northwestern motorway, hang a left into the empty car park and be pretty much guaranteed a spot right by the front doors every time. Inside, there was room to swing a cat in every store you visited. Staff were so happy for your presence they’d act like personal assistants, catering to your every whim. In the food court, the sushi store made my kids all-they-could-eat tofu rice balls. The toilets were brand new and sparkling fresh. 

Outside the mall was a whole other world. Banks, bistros, bars, restaurants and furniture stores all operated blissfully free of crowds. Te Manawa library offered the best public office space for freelancers with parking close by, plenty of tables, quiet nooks to work in, a great selection of magazines to browse if you got bored and up to 1gb of free wifi. The toilets? Even better than the mall’s.

Ghost mall
A troublesome ‘shared zone’ at NorthWest Shopping Centre used by adults, kids, cars, courier vans, trucks and cyclists. (Photo: Chris Schulz)

A short drive down empty Maki Street would unveil all the homeware stores you could handle. Grab a park by the door and browse through Briscoes, Rebel Sport, Harvey Norman, Freedom Furniture, Nood, Warehouse Stationery, a rug store and seven – yes, seven – bed shops at your leisure. When a tomcat raided our house and caused $7,000 worth of damage we gratefully accepted an insurance payout and re-furnished it entirely from stores in this precinct. 

When it opened at the end of 2015, the Northwest Shopping Centre was dubbed a “ghost mall”. People didn’t go. It lacked the lustre of the city’s Westfield Newmarket, the lure of the south’s Sylvia Park, or the amazing sprawl of Albany. It was too far to go, people claimed. It didn’t have the right shops, others said. Retailers were aghast at the lack of customers coming into the building, especially on weekdays. “It’s a ghost town,” one “financially desperate” store owner complained at the time.

During a news meeting at NZ Herald, where I worked back then, I told them about my new favourite empty mall and they turned “ghost mall” into a front page story. It was a tag that stuck through multiple follow-ups that covered NorthWest’s ongoing saga to gain customers, including spending $37 million on a neighbourhood expansion. Footpaths, bike paths, outdoor toilets and a brilliant playground were added but still the customers didn’t come.

Costco
A sign warns against parking near NorthWest’s Costco. (Photo: Chris Schulz)

I did. I was a regular. While everyone grimaced and groaned and ground it out at St Lukes and Sylvia Park, I’d swoop into NorthWest, tick off my shopping list, then take the kids to the park and enjoy the sun and the solitude. I loved my ghost mall. I went there all the time. Me and the ghosts got along just fine. It provided an Auckland mall experience like no other.

In recent weeks, all that has changed. What has for years been a pleasant place to enjoy hassle-free shopping has turned into a daunting destination, a hellishly busy place with little free parking, cars banked up at traffic lights, and drivers undertaking and overtaking each other at blocked intersections. In just a few short weeks, NorthWest has become just like any other mall. It sucks.

Why? Costco. The American superstore has bought thousands of new shoppers out West. They’re cluttering the place up, sucking up all the parks, clogging up all the roads. Costco’s bulk buying opportunities have been too good to pass up, and those customers are buying their $60 memberships and getting their hot dogs and pizza and 48-packs of toilet paper. I get it. Everyone loves a bargain. 

But the traffic is getting dangerous. Across several recent weekend trips, I have watched stationary cars bank up at the many traffic lights surrounding NorthWest. I have seen drivers pull out of these queues to pull into empty gaps in the middle of intersections. (Probably unrelated but I also watched a man floor it out of the Pak’nSave carpark with about 20 staff chasing him on foot.)

The very worst part, the nadir of this fiasco, is the “shared space” between the mall and Te Manawa library. It’s envisioned as a utopian paradise where adults, kids, motorbikes, cyclists, courier vans, trucks and cars frolic together while peacefully enjoying the trees, grass and concrete zones. When no one was there, the ‘sharing’ went fine. Now, especially on weekends, it operates as a confusing logjam of frustrated drivers and pedestrians trying to work out who has right of way. An entire lane around Farmers being permanently closed off isn’t helping things. (Auckland Transport’s response is below this story.)

Northwest
This lane next to Farmers has been closed to traffic for years. (Photo: Chris Schulz)

NorthWest’s businesses are, of course, overjoyed by this sudden turn of events. After years of inactivity, shoppers have arrived in droves. “The centre has experienced an increase in customer visitation since the opening of Costco,” a spokesperson for Stride Property, the owners of NorthWest, confirms. “The centre’s retailers confirm that many of their customers had not visited the area previously and they are pleased to be serving them for the first time.”

That spokesperson also told me traffic volumes on surrounding streets were “very challenging” when Costco first opened. But they claimed “this has been improving” as the weeks passed. On a recent Tuesday morning, I put this to the test. I headed up to NorthWest to see if I could recreate my ghost mall experience one final time. But the mall’s car park was nearly full and the front door was broken, so I had to park out on the street and use a different entrance. Inside, cafes were busy, sales signs promoting Black Friday discounts were on display and shops were heaving.

Costco
The queues at Costco on a Tuesday morning. (Photo: Chris Schulz)

I walked down Maki St, past a woman piling stacks of giant blueberry muffins into the back seat of her car, and found the reason. Outside Costco, a queue full of shoppers clutching the handles of giant trollies wound its way down the footpath. It was buzzing with excitement, the smell of consumerism was thick in the air. A woman guiding people into the queue told me it would only take 20 minutes to get to the bargains but I politely declined and returned to my car.

As I left, I headed up through the shared zone. Bad idea. A courier driver leapt out of his van, right in front of me, causing a narrow miss. I headed to the motorway for my 10-minute trip home. Thanks to a major accident on State Highway 16, it took 45 minutes. Clearly, the ghost mall’s glory days are over. NorthWest just lost a customer, but it won’t care. Business is, finally, after seven years, booming.

Update: Auckland Transport says it has received a request for support from NorthWest but says there isn’t anything it can do to alleviate traffic congestion on streets surrounding the mall. A spokesperson says the network “does not appear to have been designed to cater for the demand” it is experiencing. “Having reviewed the network, there isn’t a lot we can do given the operating protocols established to protect the Shared Space section of Maki Street. This effectively reduces the ability of shoppers to exit out of the precinct efficiently.” The spokesperson says delays are likely to get “worse” in the weeks leading up to Christmas. “We have not even started implementing the signal timing changes to align with the desired operating protocols to protect the Shared Space section of Maki Street. Due to the lack of options and narrowness of the network, we are unlikely to implement any significant changes this side of Christmas.  Our current response is to continue monitoring the network closely, particularly over the weekends.”

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Stocktake
Samantha Haenae quit Auckland and embraced a nomadic lifestyle. Even she’s struggling with the cost of living crisis. (Photo: Jinki Cambronero / Design: Tina Tiller)

BusinessNovember 15, 2022

‘Where the fuck is my money going?’: The struggle facing sole traders right now

Stocktake
Samantha Haenae quit Auckland and embraced a nomadic lifestyle. Even she’s struggling with the cost of living crisis. (Photo: Jinki Cambronero / Design: Tina Tiller)

Working for yourself can be a dream. But with so many rising costs to deal with, it can quickly become a nightmare.

This is an excerpt from our weekly business newsletter Stocktake.

Samantha Haehae was living in Auckland in 2021 when she had a revelation. The 32-year-old had a good job in her chosen career that paid her a decent salary, but it wasn’t enough. “I found it incredibly hard to save money and have a life all at the same time because it was constant go-go-go and the cost of living was getting quite expensive,” says the graphic designer and photographer. “I realised I was just living to pay bills. I felt like I was stuck in a cycle, ‘I’m miserable, I’m working crazy hours, I don’t have any time for myself or my family, or my social relationships.’”

She hated “working for the man” so decided to switch things up. In the middle of last year, she jacked in her job and her flat, left Auckland and embraced a nomadic lifestyle. Now, Haehae works as a full-time housesitter, moving around the country depending on where her next sit is. “I bounce around quite a bit,” she says. She needs less money, has more free time, and can choose when she works. “Living in rich people’s houses … enjoying their spa while I pat their cute dogs and take them for walks [is] more like me. It’s an upgrade.”

Despite trimming her living costs to the bare essentials, with no mortgage or rent demands on her income, Haehae’s found the cost of living crisis is starting to bite. Her travel costs have increased. So has her food bill. Buying groceries in the wealthier suburbs she tends to housesit in is far more expensive, she says. Recently, she looked over her digital subscriptions, both for work and for entertainment, and realised she needed to cut those right back. “You look at your accounts going, ‘Where the fuck is all my money going?’”

She’s not alone. About 20% of New Zealand’s workforce – that’s about 400,000 people – work for themselves, and many are taking a close look at where their money is going. “We’re seeing people tighten their belts,” says James Fuller, the co-founder of digital accounting service Hnry. “They’re heading into some tough economic conditions … they have to make some hard decisions around where they put their money, how much they spend on equipment, how they get the maximum value out of their business expenses, and how they plan for the future at quite an uncertain time.”



Hnry’s co-founder knows a thing or two about this because, every quarter, his team asks users how they’re coping. The latest data, released earlier this month, found some alarming statistics: 63% say business is getting tighter, 74% are saving less or eating into their savings to pay for rising living costs, and 90% are avoiding taking on debt. “Around a third of sole traders have had to put their prices up or work longer hours to make ends meet,” says Fuller. “They’re paying more for fuel, supplies and services, and that money has to come from somewhere.”

The worst thing they can do, says Fuller, is begin dipping into money that they should be saving. “When inflationary pressures hit, the first thing that people tend to do is to dip into the money that’s not theirs and start to spend their tax money.” Instead, Fuller suggests sole traders look at their costs, cutting where they can, and review their prices. “Unlike large corporations … freelancers are quite hesitant to raise their prices,” he says. But it’s one of the many benefits of working for yourself. “They have the opportunity to set their own prices and adjust them for inflationary pressures to make sure they’re not being hard done by.”

It’s something Haehae may need to think about. She’s enjoying her freedom too much to consider re-joining the nine-to-five workforce. Back when she was employed full-time, Haehae sometimes felt she was being used in a tokenistic way. “It’s very popular to have a Māori on your team. It’s very handy to get grants,” she says. Now, she can pick and choose her jobs, and make sure they’re in line with her own beliefs. “I now have the freedom to go, ‘Actually, I don’t want to work for you’. Or, ‘I’d love to work on this project, because it’s going to help somebody and be useful.’”

But she worries about the future and dreams of the day she earns enough to invest in KiwiSaver, Sharesies or crypto. “Absolutely I worry about it,” she says. “You hit your 30s and you’re like, ‘I’ve spent all my money and I’ve got nothing to show for it. I’ve never saved it or done anything good with it.’” Yes, once her nomadic lifestyle loses its lustre, Haehae would like to settle down. “Ultimately I would like to look at buying property,” she says. “That’s the ultimate goal of most Kiwis, right?”

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