Sylvia Park Mall = Yawn

We decided to see what all the fuss was about on Sunday – we guessed that the crowds would have settled down, and it was possibly safe to go visit Sylvia Park. We needed to buy something that the Warehouse sells, and sells cheapest, so we figured we’d go have a look. The traffic problem of the first couple of days were gone, but the lack on entrances, and being located on one of Auckland’s busiest roads still made getting in a lot more hassle that Botony or Manukau. Getting a park was relatively easy, more through luck than anything, but we were there, at the biggest, baddest, most wonderful shopping destination in New Zealand.

Except it wasn’t.

It was a mall just like any other mall – only smaller, really, but then it’s only the first stage. But as I said, the real reason was to go to the Warehouse Extra.

The Warehouse at Sylvia Park is big - and not just in size. It’s also the biggest change in retail shopping New Zealand has ever seen. The Warehouse Extra Sylvia Park is Australasia’s first store with food, general merchandise and clothing all under one roof. Now that’s big!

That last paragraph was, of course, the official media blurb from The Warehouse’s website. And it is stretching the truth. Quite a bit: Technically Foodtown, Woolworths and Countdown have “food, general merchandise and clothing all under one roof” even if the clothes are only seasonal catalogue specials like jackets. But lets not split hairs – we were going because it was BIG.

Well, along with redefining the retail experience, The Warehouse have redefined the word BIG. The biggest and most impressive Warehouse I’ve been in is located in Hamilton (of all places!). It has two stories of Warehouse goodness. That was (semi) impressive. This wasn’t. I’ll be sticking with The Warehouse Manukau from now on – it has more (take away the overprice food and wine), its easy to get to, and it stocks what we were after!

We also decided to check out the new Foodtown, because as the huge billboards all around the place proclaimed – they were putting the SUPER back into supermarket. Um, wrong.

Sylvia Park: smaller (much, much smaller) than you’ve been led to think.