5 March, 2025

Giant Pak’nSave store planned for Fred Thomas Dr

Foodstuffs plans to build a Pak’nSave supermarket of more than 6000sqm on land opposite the Lake House arts centre in Takapuna.
The company lodged a consent application to develop the corner site at 6 Fred Thomas Dr with Auckland Council late last year. Planners are yet to make a decision.
The application includes a request to attach sizeable signage, including two 12m-by-6m digital advertising screens on the west and south sides of the proposed yellow-and-black box-style building.
Around 900 vehicle movements an hour are predicted during weekdays and peak periods of Saturdays, which the application said could be absorbed by the road network.
The supermarket is expected to create 150 jobs.
It will have 197 under-cover, ground-level car parks accessed from two entrances on Fred Thomas Dr and one on Des Swann Dr. A drive-in click-and-collect area would be included.
The building’s total floor area would amount to 6093sqm, with a lobby leading to an upper level providing 4626sqm of retail space, along with back-of-house storage, plus a plant room on a mezzanine level.
Earthworks would be over the total 9826sqm land area and to a volume of 4495sqm – all amounts that require a restricted discretionary activity consent.
Setting up the supermarket itself is a discretionary activity under the Auckland Unitary Plan in the Business – Mixed Use Zone.
Foodstuffs North Island wants the build to proceed as a non-notified application.
Its consultants, Bentley and Co, who submitted the application, said the development’s impacts would be less than minor.
The application noted the proposed supermarket was on a floodplain and with overland flow paths. The plan was to raise ground levels by more than 300mm, it said.
The mostly flat site was once part of the Barrys Pt landfill, which closed in the 1970s, but is still monitored for seepage. To the south is a Mercedes-Benz dealership, and to the east a mix of light industrial and commercial activities, off Barrys Pt Rd.
Permission was sought to infringe construction noise standards, stockpile soil, and to drop the required seven accessible car parking spaces down to five.
The application noted Fred Thomas Dr was a recently upgraded arterial road. A roundabout had been made safer for pedestrians with the addition of refuge islands.
A thin strip at the road-side of the Pak’nSave block is owned by Auckland Council, due to its use for a sewer line. This would be vested as road reserve.