Walk through the centre of Christchurch today and something is different. Contemporary buildings with genuine architectural ambition, a hospitality scene that draws visitors from across the country, green spaces woven into the urban fabric, and streets and street art that reward walking.
“Fifteen years after earthquakes rendered 86 per cent of central city buildings unusable, what has emerged is not a reconstruction of what was lost. It’s something new,” says Colliers Christchurch Managing Director Hamish Doig.
“Increasingly, the rest of the world is noticing. What Christchurch has built is something unique and world-class.”
Cities that have rebuilt after catastrophe rarely manage to avoid recreating the past. Christchurch has, he says.
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The evidence is not just architectural. The city is bucking the national trend, with businesses expanding here.
The ‘southern drift’ is no longer wishful thinking – companies and government departments are finding strong interest from existing employees eager to relocate.
“Fifteen years ago, I was travelling to Auckland to make the investment case for Christchurch – answering the scepticism, trying to convey what the city might become. Now, the question has changed from ‘why Christchurch’ to ‘what’s available’,” Doig says.
The CBD’s transformation into a modern, amenity-rich business district has been underpinned by a pipeline of major infrastructure: Te Pae convention centre, Te Kaha One NZ Stadium, the Parakiore aquatic and leisure centre, the laneways, and expanding hotel capacity including the new Sheraton development.
Individually, each was significant. Cumulatively, they created something more than the sum of their parts – a vibrant CBD that offers reasons to be here beyond office occupancy.
Nostalgia distorts the pre-earthquake reality. The commercial market was inert.
Retail rents in the central city were suffering, vacancy was high, and suburban shopping malls were where the action was.
Canterbury had private investors who mainly owned buildings, collected rents, and managed assets. Almost none of them were builders of cities.
“The transition from landlord to developer deserves more credit than it receives. It is not a small thing to go from managing an existing asset to conceiving, financing, consenting, and delivering a new one,” Doig says.
Yet that is what a generation of Canterbury property people did, often learning on the job, in conditions of profound uncertainty about what the city was even going to look like.
Richard Peebles, Mike Percasky, and Kris Inglis built Riverside – a market and hospitality precinct that holds its own against any city in the world.
Philip Carter, Nick Hunt, Tim Glasson, and Antony Gough each shaped the retail, office, and hospitality character in ways that will endure for generations. Similarly, Mike Greer and Fletcher Living influenced the residential rebuild.
Shaun Stockman contributed alongside Peebles through the restoration of the heritage fabric down High Street and Miles Yeoman and Craig Newbury also deserve credit for their developments.
A younger cohort – Williams Corporation, Brookfields, Growcott Freer, and Wolfbrook – who were barely into their professional lives in 2011, grew rapidly to meet the opportunity.
The vision and persistence of these developers, and many other contributors, is part of what the city is now celebrating.
The central government-imposed rebuild blueprint provided a coherent framework by shrinking the commercial core and wrapping it in residential density.
Cashel Mall retail rents that were $400 to $600 per square metre before the quakes are now close to $1,500 per square metre, with scant vacancy in the pedestrian precinct.
Christchurch isn’t just a recovering city. It’s a competitive one.
“As I’ve enjoyed both rugby and Six60 at the stadium in recent weeks, I’ve reflected that the new Christchurch isn’t just a better city than the one that fell, it’s a better city than the one it was always meant to become,” Doig says.
- Supplied by Colliers
