Jobs created as Spotlight store arrives

One of the country's biggest chain stores opened its doors in Tauranga yesterday - creating 20 new jobs.

The new Spotlight shop at Gate Pa Shopping Centre is the chain's first new store in New Zealand for six years.

The opening comes after the Bay of Plenty Times reported two weeks ago on 10 new stores opening in Tauranga, including clothing stores, a manicure salon and a shoe shop.

Macpac, Briarwood, Thanks and Square are among the shops to recently open.
And Wellington-based chain Wholly Bagels is set to open a new outlet at 801 Cameron Rd, which its website says is "coming soon".

But Tauranga design store Nood (New Objects of Desire) is closing its doors at the Fraser Cove Shopping Centre after just five months.

Owned by retail entrepreneur Jan Cameron, former owner of the Kathmandu chain, the store is holding a closing down sale, which ends May 15. The owners were unavailable for comment.

Spotlight head of corporate affairs Steve Carey said the 2000sq m Tauranga store had been a decade in the making from concept to delivery, as the company searched and waited for an appropriate site.

A second major Australian retailer will be opening alongside at the end of September.

The 1500sq m bulk retail store, being built by Marra Construction with a mezzanine level, will be handed over to the new operator in late August.

The roof of the building is being completed this week and extra car parking will be added off Courtney Rd.

It is understood the latest major retailer to Tauranga, and the Gate Pa Shopping Centre, operates in the hunting and outdoors sector and it is changing its name and creating a new brand for the New Zealand market.

Among those who flocked to the Spotlight aisles of sewing and furnishing goods yesterday, was TV One Good Morning presenter Astar Young.

Ms Young, who hosts a craft segment on the show, said there had been a resurgence of interest in crafts and a return to DIY due to tough economic times.

She added: "There's a whole movement of 30-year-olds wanting to experiment with shabby chic and vintage. There's a whole emergence of that and people saying 'I wish I could do that'."

"I make all my own clothes and I say 'if you can read you can sew."'

Te Puke's Paula Milner, who was shopping with daughter Cheyanne, 4, said the new store was "marvellous." She had come straight from a session with the Te Puke Baptist Church craft group, and was searching for materials to make Mother's Day roses.

JWL Investment Trust, which established the Gate Pa Shopping Centre six years ago, has built the store for Spotlight, New Zealand's largest fabric, craft and home decorating retailer.

At 7am yesterday there were customers queuing at the door for the 8am opening.
Spotlight, a family-owned Australian business employing 6700 staff, has become Gate Pa Shopping Centre's third anchor tenant, along with New World supermarket and Mitre 10 Mega Tauranga.

The shopping centre carpark and the front of the shopping centre are linked to the entrance of Spotlight at the back.