The longest-running business at Pakuranga Plaza is closing its doors after almost 50 years due to factors including disruption from construction work for the Eastern Busway project.
Peter Guthrie says Life Pharmacy, which his father John Guthrie opened in the Plaza in 1976, will shut at the end of this month.
It’s merging with Unichem Pharmacy – which Guthrie also owns – at the nearby Pakuranga Medical Centre in Cortina Place. The new location is easier for staff and customers to access by vehicle.
“It’s a whole bunch of stuff and not one thing,” Guthrie says of the decision to move.
“The biggest and most obvious thing is a combination of the busway, the Reeves Road Flyover, the roading, and the waterworks.
“Everything is being dug up, the car park is dug up, it’s impossible a lot of the time to get in and out of the centre and access is difficult.
“It’s constantly a nightmare as far as that goes, especially for our older customers.”
Guthrie says business has “dramatically decreased” since the busway construction work around the Plaza got under way.
The slow pace of the shopping centre’s planned redevelopment also hasn’t helped, he says.
“That’s been going on for a long time, but everything is sort of on hold while this other stuff goes on.
“The biggest issue for us is there’s no path forward, no clear certainty of knowing that in two years’ time we’re going to redevelop, because you just don’t know.
“Every time a new plan comes out it looks good and then nothing happens because they decide they’re going to change the road or dig it up.
“It’s not the mall owners’ fault. It’s all these other things happening.
“We’ve had four pharmacies open around us within half-a-km in the last little while and that hasn’t helped.
“And obviously there’s the general economic climate, but, overall, you can sum it up as the decline of the Plaza.”
Guthrie says the pharmacy’s staff would hear from customers “50 times a day” that it’s difficult to get into the Plaza by vehicle due to the roadworks.
“The hardest thing for a lot of people is that they want to go up Pakuranga Road but they don’t know what exit to go out of. Reeves Road is partially closed and a lot of people are just staying away.
“Also, in the last couple of years many hundreds of houses, and some businesses, are gone and cleared out along Ti Rakau Drive for the busway.
“So a lot of our regular customers were very local and they’ve moved and things have changed.”
As Guthrie and his team prepare to leave the pharmacy in the Plaza he’s reminiscing about its history.
His message to its customers is that “we’re not going away, we’re moving over the road”.
“I and the core of our team will be there. We appreciate and treasure our customers and those relationships, and we enjoy it.
“We hope we can keep that relationship going because we love seeing everyone and the progress of their families doing well.
“We’ve had a lot of people coming in the last six weeks and we’ve been given home baking, bottles of wine, flowers, cards and all sorts of stuff. We really appreciate them.”
The Times asked Auckland Transport (AT) what it’s doing, if anything, to minimise disruption for businesses and customers at Pakuranga Plaza while the busway and flyover are constructed.
An AT spokesperson says the Eastern Busway Alliance works closely with commercial landlords and residents in the area to develop and maintain trusted working relationships with them.
The Plaza’s landlord is provided with information which it’s encouraged to share with tenants including fortnightly updates on the construction work and the Alliance asks if any tenant feedback has been received.
The spokesperson says the Alliance is saddened to learn Life Pharmacy plans to leave the mall and it was unaware of that intent.
“No feedback from Life Pharmacy has been relayed to the Alliance directly or during the fortnightly update meetings of their landlord with the Alliance.
“The new Palm Avenue intersection to Pakuranga Plaza opened in March, 2024.
“Since then, the road alignment and entrances to Eke Panuku’s car park around the Plaza have remained unchanged.”
