Three iconic high-end brands are setting up shop in the heart of Queenstown’s CBD — which a local leasing agent says is great for downtown’s retail mix.
Aussie footwear and clothing company R.M.Williams opens around next month on the corner of Rees and Beach streets.
And, just along Rees St, American brands Calvin Klein, famous for its jeans and underwear, and design life style label Tommy Hilfiger open in the former Bank of New Zealand building about February.
The brands, which share a parent company, will each take half the ground floor while Tommy Hilfiger will also occupy the mezzanine floor.
The building was leased through local Bayleys sales consultant Chris Campbell, who also brokered the sale of the property for $17 million last year.
R.M.Williams, meanwhile, is linked to Perth-based landlord Fiveight, which bought the corner building for $32.5m last year in a deal brokered by local Colliers agents Mark Simpson and Rory O’Donnell.
Colliers commercial broker Mary-Jo Hudson believes those behind the three new stores will have taken confidence from DFS Group committing to an 1800 square metre CBD store, which opens in the O’Connells building today (see below).
‘‘The good thing is these retailers are coming in at sort of mid-market and above.
‘‘And in terms of some of the brands that are in DFS, they’re luxury brands as well, and apart from Louis Vuitton, we’ve never really had those luxury brands.
‘‘So we’re sort of appealing to a much wider market — we’re going much higher into the top end, which is good for the retail mix of downtown.’’
Hudson admits the CBD streetworks have been ‘‘pretty painful’’, but says once they’re done it’ll be a more user-friendly area, which will complement the incoming retailers.
Doors ready to open
DFS Group’s new T Galleria by DFS store’s finally opening its doors in Queenstown today.
The group’s taken over two floors of the revamped O’Connells building, on Camp Street.
In all, there’ll be more than 120 international and New Zealand brands, including Chloe, Stella McCartney, Kenzo, Tom Ford, Givenchy, La Mer and Gucci Beauty.
To mark today’s grand opening, from 11am, local artist Jessica Winchcombe’s been commissioned to create a custom abstract artwork
live in store over the weekend.
Her piece will be available to bid on via a silent auction running on the GalaBid app — the link, app.galabid.com/dfsqt, will go live this morning.
All proceeds from the auction will go to local impact initiative, Sustainable Queenstown.
