The world's most famous shopping strip, in the West End, is bouncing back Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
After years as a 'national embarrassment', Oxford Street is thriving. The realtor behind the revamp has advice for Auckland.
Vacant stores, cheap pop-ups, clearance sales: it is the story of main street retailing, from Auckland's Queen Street to London's Oxford Street.
But the world's most famous shopping strip, in the West End, is bouncing back. Shoppers are flocking to the street again, big name brands are moving in and the much-despised, often illegal "American candy stores" are slowly disappearing.
Today The Detail talks to shoppers on Oxford Street and compares its revival to that of Queen Street and other struggling main drags in New Zealand.
The 1.9 km stretch dates back to the Roman Empire and gets more visitors than any main street in Europe. But around 2017, household names - like The Body Shop and Topshop - started disappearing from the road and cheap souvenir and sweet shops started springing up.
Oxford Street shops selling snacks and gifts. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
The slump in business was probably the worst the street had known, Sam Foyle of Savills real estate firm says.
"There were significant challenges for Oxford Street," says Foyle, who advises landlords and developers on the road.
He cites the impact of online shopping which hit retailers everywhere, high rents, antiquated property valuations and taxes, and multiple landlords with differing rents. Another factor putting off shoppers and potential new tenants was the disruptive construction work, an issue that has also hurt Auckland's Queen Street with the building of the City Rail Link and property revamps.
"When you have development then that closes a lot of stores," Foyle says. "On top of that you had Covid that globally hit all of the major streets that had high footfall."
Landlords with empty properties had no choice but to sign up the so-called candy stores. But many were operating illegally - not paying rates, selling illegal imports and otherwise flouting trade laws. There have also been widely reported allegations that they were fronts for money laundering operations, with one city councillor calling the candy shops "the visible part of this dirty money".
The outcry over the operations prompted the council and the government to act, he says. Taxes were cut, rents reduced, redevelopments were wrapping up and shoppers started to return.
"We were very involved in looking strategically with the landlords and helping lease the space and Oxford Street has changed dramatically," Foyle says.
By the end of last year the number of people on the street, known as footfalls, was back to pre-pandemic levels.
Despite predictions that main streets were doomed, Foyle says he was always confident they would bounce back.
"These major streets, they have highs and they have lows, particularly those with mixed ownership. We've seen big swings and generally it's when there's big geopolitical and economic recessions."
A mother and daughter visiting Oxford Street from Cyprus tell The Detail they came for the bargains and have no interest in shopping online, and two friends from Paris say they prefer Oxford Street to the crowded shopping malls of their home city.
But some shoppers say the road has a long way to go to get back to its heyday.
A resident points out that parts of the 1.9km stretch are still shabby and he's wary of plans for pedestrianisation, while another shopper says that would help revitalise it.
Auckland's Queen Street is also "on the turn" with sales bouncing back to pre-covid levels before Christmas but empty shops, unsightly bargain stores, and derelict building sites still blight the mid-town and Aotea Square areas Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
Like Oxford Street, Auckland's Queen Street is also "on the turn" with sales bouncing back to pre-Covid levels before Christmas, says the New Zealand Herald's Auckland issues writer Simon Wilson.
"There's an awful lot going on in Queen Street now that I think should give people real cause for hope," he says.
But empty shops, unsightly bargain stores, and derelict building sites still blight the mid-town and Aotea Square areas, and Auckland Council lacks a "strong mechanism" for tackling those problems.
"If we want this whole renovation to really work we need to be seeing a table-and-chairs-outside culture, but the council needs to work with the landlords to make it happen. There's not a lot of evidence of that happening at the moment and that points to the biggest single problem that Queen Street has," Wilson says.
Newmarket's main street Broadway is also struggling, with growing numbers of empty stores as customers flock to the nearby Westfield mall. Wilson says it is not doomed, but local businesses have to work together to make the most of the road's potential to be a "glorious, semi-pedestrianised shopping mecca".
Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.
You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
