Everything New and Coming Soon to Christchurch in 2027

After 15 years and $683 million, the new Te Kaha stadium has finally opened. But everyone already knows about that. So, what about the projects reshaping Christchurch that nobody's talking about? In this episode, Ed and Andrew count down the developments coming to Christchurch in 2027, ranked by what they cost. You'll learn: The new riverside path and the 600-hectare old red-zone land around itThe $130m downtown precinct of apartments, shops, and lanewaysThe one that was meant to be finished by 2027, and was delayed againThe lesson? Tracking what's actually getting built is one of the first things to check before you buy ... and almost nobody does it. Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a voice message on the Property Academy Hotline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.speakpipe.com/PropertyAcademy For more from Opes Partners: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/newsletter-sign-up⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stay ahead of the NZ property market⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.opespartners.co.nz/private-property-sign-up?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=pp_signup ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.instagram.com/opes_partners/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@opespartners

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy podcast by Opes Partners. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  And I'm Andrew Nichol.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  And this is the show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment properties. So you can be financially free and stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're going to learn everything new and coming soon to Christchurch in 2027. The top five projects come to Christchurch, counted down by cost and the one that was meant to be finished by 2027, but was delayed again. Now, after 15 years and $683 million, Te Kaha, which is the new stadium in the middle of the city centre, has arrived in March 2026.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Everyone knows that though, because every developer posts about it every five minutes.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Well, that's the thing. So you've heard about the 25,000-seat stadium that's got a roof on it and all of these nice things. But everyone does know about it. So I want to talk about the projects that people aren't talking about yet, counting them down by cost. And Andrew, what's coming in at number five?

• 0:57Speaker 01

  So this is a really cool one. It's called the City to Sea Pathway, which costs about $28 million. And it's 11 kilometres of walking and cycling path, right from the central city out the way to New Brighton. It's actually pretty good for New Brighton as well. Like, New Brighton's one of those areas where we've been talking about the changing kind of housing market there. Having something like this just kind of takes more people out there, makes it more visible for people. And the western half, that's already open and the rest is due in 2027. And it sits alongside something bigger, which is the Avon River Corridor, which is 600 hectares of the old red zone land. So this is land where it was soft, there's a couple of suburbs around there, a friend of mine lived there.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  And about 5,500 properties were cleared after the earthquakes and created this area right now. And there's been things in there, I actually haven't been in there personally, but there's, there's like a tennis court there and there's walkways and cycleways, but kind of stuff to make people get around the city rather than just, you know, sticking to their part.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and although you might have seen some articles say that it's like $380 million project for the City to Sea walkway, most of it's just like reinforcing the river banks. The actual pathway itself is very cheap, it's like $28 million or so.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  So it had to happen, that reinforcement was happening anyway.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  So at number four though, we've got the downtown precinct. Now, this is going to cost about $130 million, but it's about 20 brand new buildings that are coming to the central city. This is by Peebles.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  It's pretty amazing.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, if I think about, we are recording right in the middle of the centre of Christchurch here, as we're recording right now. And there's this big block of land right next to the stadium, like a one-minute walk away. And at the moment, like it used to be a basketball court, like I think some people park their cars there, there used to be.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Well, it used to be building, but yeah, of the last 15 years.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  I'm talking about since I've been at Christchurch though. In fact, the moustache cookies, have you ever had that? They, they used to have this big van that they would park there.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  It annoys me that people bring them into the office because they're delicious.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  But that is going to be developed into 20 new buildings. There are about 60-odd apartments in there, but a lot of it is going to be shops and restaurants, some commercial, all of that kind of stuff. Now, the developer originally said that they expect that new project to be ready for late 2027. We'll see if that actually happens, because I don't think.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  That's ambitious.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  I don't think construction, it doesn't look like it's started on that yet. And look, tracking infrastructure like this is really important for a city because it can actually impact what happens to your house price over time. And this is one of the 23 things that our team actually checks before recommending a property. And if you're interested in getting that help with your next investment property, you can book a free meeting with one of our financial advisors, we'll drop that link down in the description. But what is project number three that's coming?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  So we're going to talk about Rolleston. And we've spoken about Rolleston on the show since probably when we started, seven years ago. But another $180 to $200 million of new roads are going to be put out there, plus an $85 million town centre. Now, technically Rolleston's not Christchurch, it's 20 minutes out of Christchurch, but it's close enough that it's good enough in our mind. I don't think people that live in Rolleston wouldn't describe themselves as living in Christchurch. And as part of that couple of hundred million dollar upgrade to the roads, there's going to be a new flyover on State Highway One and the railway. And the flyover work starts in October to now, and it's due to be complete in late 2028.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  And I think this is really important because at the moment, there's this massive state highway that kind of cuts Rolleston off from like the industrial part on one side and the residential part on the other side. Now, who knew that a bridge was going to cost like $200 million?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  That's wild. Who comes up with pricing for bridges?

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Quantity survey is, Andrew, you know the answer to that. But it is going to mean that Rolleston's going to be a lot more connected and that it's going to be less traffic on that main road as well.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  And you can see why this kind of thing impacts house prices. Because if Rolleston's a bit difficult for you with your commute to work, for whatever reason, and these kind of things make it easier, well, now all of a sudden it's any area that you might look at that you wouldn't have otherwise.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  But there's also the new town centre that has been under construction for a while. Some of it's open, but it's not finished yet.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so $85 million project, which was announced in 2021, and it's being done with the council. And it's called Rolleston Fields, and it's stalled in the downturn because, let's face it, retailers are hardly expanding right now. And so why build a bunch of buildings that are going to sit there empty? But the next stage restarts this year.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  And if we look at what's to come, it's mainly shops, a cinema, all of those things that are going to make it a bit livable. The interesting thing that surprised me actually is Rolleston actually had the largest pack and save in the South Island, open last October, and they've got another Woolies or Woolworths going in around May 2027. Although I've done shows in the past talking about like that supermarkets don't predict house prices. What is true is that Rolleston is still the fastest growing area in the country, if we're talking about population-wise. And because of that, you're seeing a lot more infrastructure going in.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Is it above Auckland still?

• 6:23Speaker 00

  As a percentage, it's above Auckland, right? The anticipated population growth in Selwyn District is about 50% over the next 25-ish years. Now, as a, as a number of people, that's sort of massive amount of people, right? We're talking about going from maybe 70,000 people to call it 105,000 people. But in Auckland, we're talking about like 600,000 people, but that's about a 33% increase or so, right? Now, what's coming in at number two?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Now, this one's called Ahumahi, which is about a $700 million development of industrial land. And it was announced last month and it's a JV between ACC, Na'ihau and the Carter Group. And they're going to develop about 200 hectares of, of land into 315 industrial lots. So like massive, $700 million is what the finished lots are going to be worth or projected to be worth. And the partners haven't said what they're putting in, but it's a massive, massive project. Sites available from late 2027. And there are three sites that they're working on. There's one by the airport in Hornby and one in Rolleston.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  Now, you might think, well, why do I care about that as a property investor about some big industrial land deal between the local iwi, a rich family and ACC, right? And ultimately it does come down to jobs, right? Because if we look at just one of those three sites, if we look at the, the one right by the airport, it's called Ryan's Road, that's going to support about 755 construction jobs, about 260-odd mil worth of economic activity over the, over the life of the build, right? And so you've got that economic activity coming from the, the building, the developing of the land. But on top of that, you've also got more space for businesses to expand or start in Christchurch. That means you've got more employers and more employers mean more jobs.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  And as a property investor, I know that more jobs often mean more tenants and it's tenants that ultimately pay the rent. Now, just before we get to number one though, I always think, can you, can you really trust all of this talk about infrastructure? Because if we look at the cathedral, that was meant to be this big construction project. All of a sudden, it's run out of money, but I know you've got an update for me.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, the work did stop in 2024 and it was once due to complete next year. And that day got dropped in 2024 and there's now a new stage planned. Now, there's a partial reopening by the end of 2030 now, if they can find a bit more money.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  Like, how much are we talking?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  40 to 45 mil, that's all.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so they say that we will then restart by this year. It's been 15 years since the earthquake and. The stadium's been built, it's a pretty big deal. The library got built, the convention centre got built, the cathedral, it's a mess. And look, Ed and I grew up in religious families. So we can understand how people have ties to, you know, religious buildings. Get over it. It's not doing anything for the Catholic Church right now, sitting there. Andy's got pigeons all laying and all flapping about it. It's disgusting.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  Well, it shows you how little you know. It's not a Catholic cathedral, it's an Anglican cathedral.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Okay, whatever. I'm a fallen angel anyway. But, but look, at the end of the day, it's a mess. Like, it is something that has been like, you know, part of Christchurch's history. It's been an icon. People go into the cathedral square and it's just a mess. I just think, get over it.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  I think you're totally off your head if you're thinking that it should be pulled down.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  It shouldn't have been rebuilt like this in the first place. It's an absolute waste of money.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Well, the original bishop of the church, who was there at the time, wanted to pull down the cathedral as it was and rebuild it into a much more affordable project. It is interesting now, though, that they're saying, hey, look, we're going to do a partial reinstatement. We're going to open part of it by 2030. We'll see if that date slips again. I take a slightly different view of thinking, I don't think that the cathedral's unimportant. I think it's an important icon.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  No, sorry. What I mean is they should build, they should start from scratch. It's horribly inefficient. It's been a waste of taxpayer money. It's not, it's not good enough.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Well, I think, well, obviously, like, I don't think we're sitting here with all of the budgets. But the one thing you'd have to consider is, what is the marginal cost, right? Because let's say X amount of money, X hundred million has already been spent on it. Well, that's already been spent, right? So what you'd want to consider is how much extra money do we need? Because if they reckon that they're going to be able to open it with, what did we say?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Forty, thirty, thirty five thousand.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Forty million dollars.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  I think the original cost to build the wooden structure that the previous bishop was planning was in the region of fifty five to sixty five million dollars, just from memory. And so that would likely be more expensive today. You might find that ripping down what's currently there and replacing it would now be more expensive than continuing with what you've got because some of that investment, while, while large, and I agree with you on that, has already been made.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes. No, I mean, it's, it was being a cock up from the start. I'm not saying they should rip it down now.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Okay, let's come to number one.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Look, you guys are all hatred.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  No, I just look forward to the YouTube, the YouTube comments.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Justify it, please.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  But if we come to the biggest project on our list of what's coming new to Christchurch was mass rapid transit. Now, this is the biggest of the lot. It is also the furthest and most uncertain, right? But what is being discussed is 22Ks of railroad or light rail effectively, or it could be a busway even. And it's going to cost about three to four billion dollars, but that's going to include 21 stations, right?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  It makes the cathedral seem cheap now.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're going to eat your words, aren't you? But they haven't decided whether it's going to be like mass rapid transport in terms of buses or whether it's going to be light rail. But the talk is about building a large transport route from Belfast, which is in north of Christchurch into the central city and then out to the western part of Christchurch, out to Hornby. So effectively, we've got a lot of development happening in Christchurch up in the northern part. Lots of houses being built, same out in Hornby slash Hallswell Way. So they're talking about building two ways to get into the central city effectively.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  What's the benefit of spending this money over buses? Like, they obviously do an economic analysis of this, no?

• 12:55Speaker 00

  So they haven't decided whether it's going to be light rail or whether it is going to be buses, right? And so, but what they're talking about, if it was buses, is not just putting them on the same roads that already exist, about building specific lanes for them so they can get in and get out much faster, a lot like we've seen in Auckland with the Northern Busway, where you drive up the Northern Motorway and there is a separate set of lanes, fully fenced off, that the buses consume up and down. So it's relatively efficient because they're not getting caught in other traffic.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been, I've been caught out by that and driven down those bus lanes, got a ticket.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Now, just keep in mind that this specific project is still at what's called the business case stage. So this isn't going to start in, in 2027, right? The council's got to work out which land it needs. The early designs might be finished by the end of 2026. Realistically, this ain't going to be around to the mid thirties and only if someone funds it. But I like showing you what could happen in the future.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  It's pretty exciting to see some of these things happening in a city though, right? But you can understand how, you know, if you live in a city and you're thinking, oh, you know, I'm going to make some decisions around housing because I might be in my house for next 10 years. These kind of things might impact my decision.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and over the last 15 minutes, you've learned everything new and coming soon to Christchurch. The top five projects counted down by cost and the one that was meant to be finished by 2027, but was delayed again. Right, let's wrap it up there, but please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. Really does help us get the message out to more people.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Property Academy Podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  I'm your nickel.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  We're going to be back again tomorrow with even more daily strategies, tactics and insights to help you get the most out of the new selling property market. Until next time.