New fast-food outlets, drive-through Starbucks for Timaru?
Wednesday, 2 July 2025
The owner of a group of properties on a corner of a troublesome intersection in Timaru wants to build three drive-through businesses there.
Home Centre Properties Ltd have lodged a resource consent application with the Timaru District Council to build and operate a Starbucks cafe, and two fast-food restaurants on the corner of Evans St/State Highway 1 and Grants Rd.
The application says one of the fast-food restaurants would be operated by Popeyes, which specialises in fried chicken, and a tenant was being sought for the second restaurant.
Home Centre Properties Ltd, which owns the properties at 194 and 196-208 Evans St and 4 Grants Rd, is owned by Allan and Elizabeth Dippie.
Speaking to The Timaru Herald after purchasing the properties in 2024, Allan Dippie said Timaru had “a lot going for it, looks prosperous and growing” and they had decided to try it out, but not on a big-scale project.
The company has asked the council to process the application on a non-notified basis.
An assessment on the environmental effects of the development, prepared by planners Mark Geddes and Gemma Conlon, of Perspective Consulting, was completed on June 26.
It says three separate single-story buildings are proposed. Starbucks would have a gross floor area of 230m² and seating for 36 people, Popeyes would have a floor area of 282m² and seating for 64, and the third yet-to-be-tenanted premises would be 227m² with seating for 50.
Each would operate seven days a week, Starbucks between 5am and 10pm, with the two fast-food outlets to open 7am to midnight Sunday to Wednesday, with extended hours Thursday to Saturday when they would close at 1am.
The application said the number of staff “normally recruited” for the stores meant up to 112 roles would be created; 55 at Popeyes, 12 at Starbucks and 45 at the third outlet.
However, most would be shift worker roles, and not all would be full time, with about a third of the total staff on site at any one time.
“The employment generated by the proposal is significant in the context of the local Smithfield freezing works closing … layoffs at the DB brewery and Timaru District Council.
“…therefore the proposal will have a positive effect in terms of providing alternative employment for those people who have lost employment from the closure of the freezing works.”
It said the development would also offer a place for people to meet, and said there were “no other cafes in this neighbourhood”, although across SH1, The Showgrounds development had a cafe, as did BP.
It listed other positive economic benefits as increasing income tax and GST revenue, expenditure in companies that would service the development and help to construct it, and “increasing the desirability of Timaru as a destination to stop”.
“The limited size of the proposal means that it is unlikely to cause any actual or potential distribution effects on the Timaru town centre.”
The application acknowledged “potential adverse effects” on State Highway 1 and the residential development to the south and west of the site.
A transport report, prepared by Avanzar Consulting, said two accesses to the site were proposed, a two-way access off Grants Rd and entry only off State Highway 1.
It said there was a road widening designation on the 196-208 Evans St and discussion had begun with NZ Transport Agency to define that and “ensure the development can be maximised while retaining sufficient space for a left-turn slip lane and shared path”.
“… the development will be staged with the Popeyes opening first and the Starbucks opening second several months later.”
It said all three would have a drive-through facility and negotiations for the southern building had “not yet been concluded”.
“All three proposed outlets are international chains and at least two are new to Timaru.”
The third would open “at least a year after the Starbucks” which would allow for the “excitement generated by each new franchise to be managed” avoiding queuing on the road.
“The Popeyes is expected to generate the greatest excitement … A traffic management plan will be prepared prior to opening.”
It said NZTA had requested an analysis of the SH1/Grants Rd intersection with and without the development and the SH1 access.
“Because the intersection is incomplete and the Showgrounds development has various resource consent conditions attached … making the future impacts impossible to assess, it is considered that only the current layout and traffic volumes should be analysed.”
The report looked at a range of traffic movements around the proposed development and concluded the additional traffic would be “insufficient to justify any changes to the intersection layout” and providing SH1 access would not “adversely affect the intersection performance”.
The site of the proposed development was located in an area identified by the Proposed District Plan as being a site of significance to Māori and described its values as an important area for food gathering and processing and customary fishing.
The applicant had consulted with Aoraki Environmental Consultancy Limited (AECL) as the environmental consultancy of Te Runanga o Arowhenua.
In a letter attached to the application, AECL general manager Ally Crane said Arowhenua and AECL did not oppose the proposed redevelopment of the commercial site.
“However, given the significance of the site … Arowhenua ask that an accidental discovery protocol condition be imposed on the land use consent to ensure that the appropriate protocols are followed if artefacts/or bones are found whilst undertaking earthworks.”
The development site was zoned commercial and residential under the Timaru District Plan. The overall activity was considered non-complying.
Perspective’s report described the company behind the application as being part of a group of companies which also owned Willowridge Development, a well-established developer in Otago and Southland.
Willowridge was the developer behind Wānaka’s Three Parks commercial centre and business park, and a fast-food hub in Dunedin’s Andersons Bay Rd comprising eight fast-food outlets.
The applicant had also made a submission on the Proposed Timaru District Plan to rezone the application site. Decisions on submissions had not been released to date, it says.
Starbucks and Popeyes were owned by Tahua Partners, which also owned Burger King, Hannahs, Number One Shoes and Torpedo7.
Timaru already had a Burger King restaurant which was located next to the Z Caroline fuel station.