Briscoes Signals Faith in Christchurch with Rebuilt Store

July 2012

Briscoes Signals Faith in Christchurch with Rebuilt Store

The Christchurch CBD will get a major confidence boost next week, when the doors open on the central city’s first fully rebuilt large-scale retail store.

Briscoes will open a brand new homeware store in Salisbury Street on August 1. After trading at the spot since 1969, the former store was deemed unsafe following the February 2011 earthquake, and faced the bulldozers late last year. Staff were redeployed within the business in Christchurch.

But Briscoes stood steadfast in its belief in central Christchurch, determined to rebuild bigger and better on the iconic site. The new 3,300 square metre store features up-to-the-minute retail design, with improved car parking. Former staff will return to run the store, joined by ten new employees.

And quake-weary Cantabrians can shop confidently in the knowledge that the single-storey building features state-of-the-art seismic design by Zoran Raković, Director of Christchurch engineering firm Xona Consultants. The store is built on 175 piles, driven down around eight metres into a stable layer of gravel, and supporting a floor slab suspended above the ground. In the event of an earthquake, liquefaction would fill the voids beneath the slab, leaving the store unaffected.

Briscoes Chief Operating Officer Pete Burilin, says the decision to rebuild on the central Christchurch site shows the company’s confidence that the battered city will continue to recover.

“The Salisbury Street store has always been one of our top performing stores in the country, and we have faith it will continue to be a busy store on reopening.”

Briscoes is a well-known brand in Christchurch, and the fact that we are reinvesting and rebuilding here will hopefully spur other retailers and businesses into joining us. We believe Christchurch’s central city has a solid future, and we’re proud to be back,” Mr Burilin says.

Store Manager Jeremy Lowe - who has worked at the site since 1993 - says staff can’t wait to welcome customers into the new store.

“This is a show to Canterbury, and the whole of New Zealand, that we can rebuild and carry on. We’ve seen a lot of destruction here, now’s the time for positivity and moving forward. We’re all really excited to be a part of that.”

The new Briscoes store at 195 Salisbury Street in Christchurch will open to customers on Wednesday August 1 at 9am, with an official ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday August 2 at 9am, attended by Christchurch Deputy Mayor Ngaire Button, Tammy ‘The Briscoes Lady’ (a Christchurch local), and Briscoes management.

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