The birth of a suburb

The knuckle-whitening Sylvia Park development, which has consumed all his energies since he joined the Kiwi team working on the project five years ago, had been quite enough.

For 10 years, Kiwi has been promising the market and investors it will transform a site covered in a collection of elderly military storage sheds into a goldmine worth $300 million.

At an intersecting motorway network, the group will soon start a six-year project, creating a new town centre.

The development, revealed yesterday, will have hundreds of apartments, parking for 3000 vehicles, a multiplex cinema, supermarkets, a chain of large stores such as The Warehouse, office blocks for up to 5000 people, restaurants and cafes - all on a block of land the size of 34 rugby fields.

Millions of people are expected to pass through the development every year.

On Tuesday, Kiwi applied to the Auckland City Council for the project's resource consent.

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