Inside Richard Peebles’ $130m Downtown vision for Christchurch’s revival

Christchurch property investor Richard Peebles. Photo / Supplied

Peebles’s financial education truly began with his vocation as a valuer. Understanding the power of property, he and a group of mates began to invest. As they made a profit, Peebles resisted the temptation to spend, instead reinvesting.

By his mid to late 30s, he had amassed a portfolio of 10 properties by using the same method and continuing in his full-time valuation job. He recalls a situation around that time when his EFTPOS card declined for a cup of coffee. He was cash-poor, but asset-rich. His wealth in business acumen was even greater and growing by the day.

Now, the Christchurch property investor is arguably the most savvy and important private landowner in the central city. Not because of the volume of his portfolio – others may have more. Not because of the value of his portfolio – others might own greater. Peebles’s importance is in creating assets that work financially and help the rebuilding city grow.

A render of the proposed Downtown precinct in Christchurch by prolific investor Richard Peebles. Photo / Supplied

When I meet him at his office, he offers me a coffee, which he makes himself, and waxes lyrical about a trade show in China that he has just returned from. He was on a reconnaissance mission for his latest project – Downtown, a $130m mixed precinct of retail, office and residential. His primary goal in China was to cut costs without cutting corners. Going by his account of the trip, it was mission accomplished.

Downtown

His latest and possibly greatest investment is in Downtown, a prime 4,800sq m city block that is flanked by Manchester, Cashel and Lichfield Streets. It is half a block from the new 30,000-seat One New Zealand Stadium – Te Kaha.

Peebles was inspecting a Fletchers build opposite the Downtown block, unaware that it was even for sale.

“I looked across the road at the super lot. I said to Ben [his development manager], ‘That’s a bloody good site, imagine getting your hands on that?’ and Ben mentioned that the Crown Infrastructure Delivery were doing an RFP [Request for Proposal] on it and it closed in like two weeks.”

The possibility of the large site and the looming proposal deadline were enough to ignite Peebles’ creativity.

“We wanted to do retail ground floor, office first floor, upper levels residential. Everyone talks about it, but no one’s done it at scale,” he says.

Peebles’s Downtown precinct will incorporate retail, office and residential across different levels. Photo / Supplied

“We got hold of our architect, which is Pinterest, went and chose buildings we liked. We cut and pasted the different buildings on the different sites for the different tenancies.”

They finished with time to spare.

“Within about eight days, we had this beautiful video and presentation of plans and we got a meeting with Crown Infrastructure Delivery. We presented to the panel and they absolutely loved it.”

Peebles says similar super lots that had chosen residential development had failed to “activate” the streets that they sit on.

“[They’ve] activated the rest of the city, but don’t actually activate the block itself.”

Downtown will include numerous penthouse apartments.

“They’re not all $5m, 300sq m apartments. Some of them are 70sq m, two-bed, but they’re on the top floor.”

Either way, they’ve been popular just from the plans.

“When we went to the market, we had hundreds of inquiries, all wanting the top floor.”

An apartment block on Downtown’s northern boundary with a large penthouse offering. Photo / Supplied

He says building a mixed-use precinct is perfect for the site because it ties together multiple revenue strands in a location that is experiencing demand on every front.

“We knew from [having] a little bit of retail in Cashel Mall, there’s a lot of retail tenants looking with no space. Christchurch is a bit different to Auckland and Wellington at the moment, where there’s demand for tenancies – really good demand. I think the last one that came up in Cashel Mall, there were four unconditional offers from really good brands.”

Peebles was convinced it would work but it was the Crown panel that needed to be convinced before the purchase was approved.

“I was on my way to Cromwell. I’d actually just picked up my boat and I’ve driven out and the boat had come off the trailer. Unbelievable, I was pulled on the side of the road – this is like three days before Christmas… then I got a phone call from Crown Infrastructure while I was trying to put my boat back on, telling me that we were successful. It was pretty exciting.”

The city

By the time Peebles had won the race to the Downtown land, he had a reputation for creating modern landmarks. Little High Eatery and the famous Riverside Market were both his work – in partnership with the equally visionary Mike Percasky and Kris Inglis.

The brains behind Christchurch’s famous Riverside Market – Mike Percasky (left) Kris Inglis (middle), Richard Peebles (right). Photo / George Heard

But Peebles was already a major player before Christchurch needed rebuilding.

“Pre-earthquake, we specialised in heritage buildings. We had about 30 buildings, not all heritage, but all our ones in town were heritage.

“Our philosophy pre-earthquake was to buy old heritage buildings, do them up, and put new facilities, new data cabling and new kitchens and bathrooms and polish the floors and expose the bricks. It was that trendy industrial chic before it was trendy.

“But they all fell down.”

On February 22, 2011, Peebles, like many in Christchurch, found himself surrounded by bricks and covered in dust when a vicious magnitude-6.3 earthquake changed the city forever.

“I was a bit scared of heritage buildings for a while, but a few days afterwards we had to make a decision and I just said straight away, ‘You know, it’s my home – I always want to be here’” he says.

“A lot of people took the money and left town. We decided we’re going to start rebuilding, and I think we did the first two or three buildings post-quake.”

After losing his central city buildings to the quake, he would lose the land they had

collapsed on, too.

“I lost the 12 or 13 sites when they released the blueprint.”

A giant framed print of the government’s blueprint sits in the Peebles Group boardroom. It could be a tribute to the rebirth of a city that he has contributed greatly to. It could be for motivation – a reminder of the plan that, in many ways, forced him to start again.

The original Christchurch Central City Recovery Plan Blueprint as it was released in 2012. Many alterations have been made but most of the anchor projects have been completed with Parakiore Metro Sports facility opening in December and One New Zealand Stadium in April.

When the government redesigned the central city, it identified the land that it wanted.

“They took our land for f***ing cents in the dollar, for what it was worth,” he says.

“Basically, they had valued the land after the earthquake and when there was no demand for land, land that was previously worth three times as much, they were offering like $400 a square metre.”

Peebles knew he was being lowballed – but the alternative could be worse.

“If you don’t like it, you can apply to the Minister for compensation and that’ll take two or three years.”

He took it, added it to his insurance money and began to buy again.

“I was all cashed up, so I went mad and just bought land right before the land prices started to recover. I bought hectares of land all over the place that people didn’t want. I bought it around the suburbs and around the periphery.”

With the city in a state of indefinite flux, Peebles began to rebuild his empire outside of the “Four Avenues”.

“There were sites outside of the CBD and there wasn’t a lot of developers. We used to do one or two projects a year, but I think after the quake we were doing eight or nine.”

Records show that the Peebles Group owns 75 properties in Christchurch – almost half of them are outside of the CBD. Their first venture back into the city was on The Terrace and it was a statement of intent.

“It was Fat Eddie’s on the corner of Hereford Street. It was $4000 a square metre, which at the time was a record for Christchurch. It was such a cool site.

“Fat Eddies” on the corner of Hereford St and Oxford Terrace, Richard Peebles’ first central city project after the 2011 earthquake. Photo / Mike Thorpe

“I rang up Max Bremner. I said, ‘Mate, you know this is the only one not owned by Antony [Gough]? You want to do a bar there?’

“He said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it – but I want to be part owner.’ We were the first building opened in the terrace, even though we’d started two years later.”

An even higher profile site also entered the market on the corner of Cashel St and Oxford Terrace – at an even higher price. It was formerly a multi-level office block with a Night & Day convenience on the ground floor.

“Six-thousand-dollars a square metre, which was f***ing eye-watering at the time. But I just love the site and I’m a valuer. I’ve known property in Christchurch all my life.

“I’ve managed properties in the CBD, the opportunity to buy that site, which is probably the best site in Christchurch. I shook his hand on the spot and just said ‘I’ll do it’.”

The corner of Oxford Terrace and Cashel Mall. Peebles paid an “eye-watering” sum for the site. Photo / Mike Thorpe

It’s now home to a single-level retail space for Hugo Boss and Sergios.

Investment lessons

Peebles knows property. He’s built a portfolio to prove it. He’s not afraid of sharing what he’s learned either.

“When I bought that [Cashel St site] there were multiple designs by some really good architects, but some of the designs were just… you’re talking about a site which is only 500 square metres. The highest-valued site in Christchurch, you paid a s*** load of money for it but when they designed it, they only had 300 square metres to rent because they had big rubbish areas and cycle parks out the back.

“They had a big entrance way and they had a first floor which rents for 1/5th of what the ground floor’s worth. It was never going to stack up. I just look at it and go, who the f*** would do this?”

Peebles says a lot of people couldn’t understand why he’d even consider a single-level building on the highest value land in town.

“If we put an extra floor on it, you lose 50-60 square metres of $1200 a square metre space to build space that’s only worth $400 a square metre on the first floor. So you either go up really high or you go really low. Two levels is a f***ing disaster for the high-end value stuff.

“We built a single-level building because you get $1200 a square metre. There’s no foyer, there’s no thicker walls, so you get a 95% rentable area.”

With almost 100 projects to his name, Peebles will long be remembered for his part in his city’s rebuild. The self-proclaimed investor (not developer) is both exciting and excitable, with no plans to exit the city he loves.

“I live here, and all I’m doing is building things that I’d like to go to. When you get the opportunity to build a city, where does that happen? It’s quite incredible.”

Mike Thorpe is a senior journalist for the Herald, based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.