Auckland’s northwest is maturing and with up to 100,000 extra people expected to be living in there in the long term, investors and developers are highly engaged in the strategically located quadrant that includes Redhills, Westgate, Hobsonville, Whenuapai, Kumeū-Huapai and Riverhead.

Bayleys general manager West Auckland, Brendan Graves says the true potential of the northwest quadrant is yet to be fully appreciated by the wider Auckland market – despite strong activity and development.

“It’s the perfect melting pot of live-zoned and future pipeline land, identified population growth, significant private and public investment in built assets and infrastructure, great retail offerings, and connectivity.

“Residential projects are quickly absorbed, occupier demand for commercial and industrial product is high, transport initiatives are progressing and there’s good value-for-money across property typologies.”

New Zealand Retail Property Group (NZRPG) together with (then) Waitākere City Council conceived the Westgate Town Centre mixed-use precinct, which is at the heart of Northwest Auckland. Today it’s a vibrant hub where comprehensive retail and commercial property offerings continue to evolve.

“Westgate Town Centre has three major retail hubs namely Westgate Shopping Centre, Westgate Lifestyle and NorthWest Shopping Centre. The precinct boasts New Zealand’s largest Mitre 10 and Bunnings stores, with the country’s largest Kmart store to open in Westgate in 2026,” says Stuart Bode of Bayleys Northwest.

“Stage two of the masterplanned Northside Drive industrial business park is selling down, the Maki Centre is filling up, and other large sites now support hyperscale data centres for Microsoft, DCI and the under-construction project for Amazon Web Services.

“These initiatives add considerable gravitas to the northwest’s capability to compete on Auckland’s commercial and industrial stage, giving Westgate a future-driven focus that other forward-thinking businesses will look to leverage.”

NZRPG head Mark Gunton says the scale of developments at Westgate today is testament to the blueprint the Council adopted and which NZRPG became the “keeper” of following the creation of the super city entity.

“As a location, Westgate has amongst the highest retail spend profiles in New Zealand, and the next phase of developments we have underway will see it as the largest. Westgate has fulfilled its promise of being one of the dominant Town Centre locations in Auckland.”

Nearby, the former rural/lifestyle area of Whenuapai is being reimagined as an urban community, underscored by significant industrial business capacity. Wesley Gerber, Bayleys Northwest director says the emerging large-scale industrial precinct will give the broader South Auckland/airport corridor a run for its money.

“Around 300ha of future industrial land in Whenuapai has been brought forward for planning/rezoning by council due to the lack of suitably zoned business land elsewhere across Auckland, and the precinct’s broader connectivity credentials via State Highways 16 and 18 and the western ring route.”

Gerber says the private sector has proactively spearheaded zoning and private plan changes in the northwest, and Whenuapai now needs more residential development to feed into the live-work-play narrative that defines best-in-class masterplanned nodes.

“Whenuapai will be guided by Hobsonville Point’s example of clever, more-intensified living with high amenity. Over the next 10 years we will see the inner northwest landscape change significantly across the retail, industrial and residential markets as developers start digging in and delivering urban outcomes.”

Auckland Council general manager policy, Louise Mason says Westgate, Whenuapai, and Red Hills are priority areas for investment in collaboration with central government. The council’s Long-term Plan 2024-2034 acknowledges the area has substantial infrastructure investment requirements over the medium to long-term, while under the council’s Future Development Strategy (FDS), the northwest sub-region is an important growth area.

“The aim of these growth areas is to bring housing and jobs closer together to create more sustainable and vibrant sub-regions, and reduce the need to travel,” says Mason.

“As the node for the northwest serving local established residential areas and future urban areas, Westgate will require substantial future transport and infrastructure investment to perform well.”

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) is making progress on plans to deliver a busway alongside the Northwestern Motorway to Auckland City Centre as part of the Te Ara Hauāuru - Northwest Rapid Transit project.

Similar to the Northern Busway alongside State Highway 1 (Northern Motorway), the project will provide quicker and more reliable journeys, and more transport choice for people in the growing northwest.

More public transport improvements are still to come with work underway to deliver a new local bus station at Westgate, and Auckland Transport has plans for a network of bus priority and T2 lanes to improve the speed and reliability of buses, the frequency of some bus services increased, and new electric buses on some bus routes.