Article | Future Cities
2025 is Christchurch’s year as economy recovers
Christchurch is on the cusp of becoming the best city in New Zealand on almost any conceivable measure – investing, doing business, living or visiting, and 2025 is our year.
April 8, 2025
Media Contact
Dan Scott
Marketing and Pitch Director, New Zealand
Christchurch is on the cusp of becoming the best city in New Zealand on almost any conceivable measure – investing, doing business, living or visiting, and 2025 is our year.
Big public facilities are nearing completion, hundreds of skilled migrants are moving to Canterbury and tourism is recovering. Christchurch is positioned to become the primary gateway city for the South Island.
The post-earthquake recovery phase has matured into strong growth and we are now a world-class city in the eyes of international tourism markets – both business and leisure.
It’s a genuinely exciting time to be living, working and investing here. There is energy in the property market that we haven’t seen in the past two years and the reducing cost of borrowing is fuelling buyer confidence.
Together with uplifts in business and consumer confidence and inflation staying within target, there are plenty of reasons for economic optimism, notwithstanding the possible global effects of Trump’s tariff war.
Another tailwind for the improvement in regional economic sentiment is the higher milk price payout forecast, with beef and lamb prices also showing increases. A healthy primary industry in our region can only be positive for the recovery in consumer spending.
Our residential property market is still good value on national comparisons and this is a strong draw for people wanting a better quality of life. Ask any AI chatbot why Christchurch is a great city to live in and answers include our relatively affordable housing, good quality of life, easy access to nature and the outdoors, family-friendly community, less traffic congestion and our world-class post-earthquake infrastructure rebuild.
But locals already knew that. What’s changed now is that Christchurch is on the map nationally as a great city, rather than a post-earthquake construction zone. This is reflected in migration figures and recruiters are reporting substantial numbers of skilled professionals from Auckland and around the country seeking a move to Canterbury. This is incredibly exciting for the future of our city and region.
Conference and event attendee levels at our fantastic new conference centre, Te Pae, in its first two years of operation far outstripped all expectations. This also reflects how important Te Pae is, along with our other high quality local event facilities such as the Town Hall, for putting Christchurch and Canterbury on the map for business events and leisure visitors, especially during off-peak periods. The benefits for hospitality and tourism operators citywide are immense and the positive economic effect regionally of big events will ramp up once our long-awaited One NZ Stadium opens next year.
CBRE’s research and hotels teams have recently studied the positive impact of big events in Auckland on the city’s hotel operators. SailGP, along with two sell-out concerts at Eden Park by American country singer Luke Combs over one weekend in mid January, generated over $5 million of additional room revenue for hotels in the city. This is over and above usual expected revenues for a comparable summer weekend with no major citywide events on. The benefits to hospitality operators and retailers will have also been highly significant.
If we can replicate this sort of effect in Christchurch by attracting big concerts and sports events to our new stadium, just imagine the flow-on benefits for restaurants, bars, retailers, tourism providers and other businesses across the city, especially off-peak.
Electric Avenue is of course a key example of this. The ‘biggest party in Australasia’ held over two days in February drew thousands of people from around the country. Last year’s one-day festival generated almost $6.5 million in visitor spending for the local economy and this year’s economic benefit obviously will have been even greater. Callam Mitchell and his fellow organisers deserve huge accolades for fearlessly sticking with their commitment to make Electric Avenue even bigger, at a time when many live music venues and festivals are failing around the country and across the Tasman.
Other new facilities expected to open in the coming year will give locals further reason for pride in our city and our high calibre post-earthquake projects. Having had the privilege of visiting the under-construction Parakiore recreation and sports centre recently, I was genuinely impressed by the exceptional quality of this expansive and high-tech facility. It will be truly an international-standard sports centre benefiting the whole region, despite the frustrating delays in bringing it to fruition.
The new Court Theatre is another top-grade facility that locals can be justifiably proud of. Its design is best in class and demonstrates international-standard excellence. Part of its design team are UK-based architects who have worked on several theatre projects in the UK including the revitalisation of the National Theatre in London – the world’s biggest producing theatre.
These high-calibre facilities and events are only going to reinforce Christchurch’s national and international reputation over time, creating additional economic activity that generates benefits for local businesses. Of course success breeds success and this encourages investors and property owners to have the confidence to press ahead with development plans, which we hope will bring more private projects to the city as the availability and cost of debt financing improves. In the planning are four new hotels, for example, which will provide much-needed additional options in the CBD.
Commercial property in Christchurch offers a very strong investment case. Industrial and retail vacancy is extremely low amid strong tenant demand. National and international retailers are zeroing in on the Christchurch CBD as a key opportunity.
CBD office occupiers’ growth stories are also positive for the central city office property market and the pipeline of upcoming space. These include Kiwibank doubling the size of its Christchurch headquarters and moving into the One NZ building. Our local CBRE team is also growing and we look forward to moving into our new 800sqm purpose-designed premises later this year.
We expect commercial property transaction volumes to pick up this year. Term deposit rates dropping below the 5% mark always brings a rise in investment levels into direct property, syndicates and funds. Inbound international capital remains cautious; however Christchurch has traditionally been the domain of locally-domiciled buyers and we are not expecting a significant shift in capital sources.
We do anticipate the return of some larger-scale transactions as the market continues to move towards the long-awaited meeting of the minds between sellers’ and buyers’ price expectations.
Christchurch is on the map. We’re no longer the next big thing, we are the big thing. The future of our region is tremendously exciting and there has never been a better time to be a Cantabrian.
Tim Rookes, Managing Director, CBRE Christchurch
Big public facilities are nearing completion, hundreds of skilled migrants are moving to Canterbury and tourism is recovering. Christchurch is positioned to become the primary gateway city for the South Island.
The post-earthquake recovery phase has matured into strong growth and we are now a world-class city in the eyes of international tourism markets – both business and leisure.
It’s a genuinely exciting time to be living, working and investing here. There is energy in the property market that we haven’t seen in the past two years and the reducing cost of borrowing is fuelling buyer confidence.
Together with uplifts in business and consumer confidence and inflation staying within target, there are plenty of reasons for economic optimism, notwithstanding the possible global effects of Trump’s tariff war.
Another tailwind for the improvement in regional economic sentiment is the higher milk price payout forecast, with beef and lamb prices also showing increases. A healthy primary industry in our region can only be positive for the recovery in consumer spending.
Our residential property market is still good value on national comparisons and this is a strong draw for people wanting a better quality of life. Ask any AI chatbot why Christchurch is a great city to live in and answers include our relatively affordable housing, good quality of life, easy access to nature and the outdoors, family-friendly community, less traffic congestion and our world-class post-earthquake infrastructure rebuild.
But locals already knew that. What’s changed now is that Christchurch is on the map nationally as a great city, rather than a post-earthquake construction zone. This is reflected in migration figures and recruiters are reporting substantial numbers of skilled professionals from Auckland and around the country seeking a move to Canterbury. This is incredibly exciting for the future of our city and region.
Conference and event attendee levels at our fantastic new conference centre, Te Pae, in its first two years of operation far outstripped all expectations. This also reflects how important Te Pae is, along with our other high quality local event facilities such as the Town Hall, for putting Christchurch and Canterbury on the map for business events and leisure visitors, especially during off-peak periods. The benefits for hospitality and tourism operators citywide are immense and the positive economic effect regionally of big events will ramp up once our long-awaited One NZ Stadium opens next year.
CBRE’s research and hotels teams have recently studied the positive impact of big events in Auckland on the city’s hotel operators. SailGP, along with two sell-out concerts at Eden Park by American country singer Luke Combs over one weekend in mid January, generated over $5 million of additional room revenue for hotels in the city. This is over and above usual expected revenues for a comparable summer weekend with no major citywide events on. The benefits to hospitality operators and retailers will have also been highly significant.
If we can replicate this sort of effect in Christchurch by attracting big concerts and sports events to our new stadium, just imagine the flow-on benefits for restaurants, bars, retailers, tourism providers and other businesses across the city, especially off-peak.
Electric Avenue is of course a key example of this. The ‘biggest party in Australasia’ held over two days in February drew thousands of people from around the country. Last year’s one-day festival generated almost $6.5 million in visitor spending for the local economy and this year’s economic benefit obviously will have been even greater. Callam Mitchell and his fellow organisers deserve huge accolades for fearlessly sticking with their commitment to make Electric Avenue even bigger, at a time when many live music venues and festivals are failing around the country and across the Tasman.
Other new facilities expected to open in the coming year will give locals further reason for pride in our city and our high calibre post-earthquake projects. Having had the privilege of visiting the under-construction Parakiore recreation and sports centre recently, I was genuinely impressed by the exceptional quality of this expansive and high-tech facility. It will be truly an international-standard sports centre benefiting the whole region, despite the frustrating delays in bringing it to fruition.
The new Court Theatre is another top-grade facility that locals can be justifiably proud of. Its design is best in class and demonstrates international-standard excellence. Part of its design team are UK-based architects who have worked on several theatre projects in the UK including the revitalisation of the National Theatre in London – the world’s biggest producing theatre.
These high-calibre facilities and events are only going to reinforce Christchurch’s national and international reputation over time, creating additional economic activity that generates benefits for local businesses. Of course success breeds success and this encourages investors and property owners to have the confidence to press ahead with development plans, which we hope will bring more private projects to the city as the availability and cost of debt financing improves. In the planning are four new hotels, for example, which will provide much-needed additional options in the CBD.
Commercial property in Christchurch offers a very strong investment case. Industrial and retail vacancy is extremely low amid strong tenant demand. National and international retailers are zeroing in on the Christchurch CBD as a key opportunity.
CBD office occupiers’ growth stories are also positive for the central city office property market and the pipeline of upcoming space. These include Kiwibank doubling the size of its Christchurch headquarters and moving into the One NZ building. Our local CBRE team is also growing and we look forward to moving into our new 800sqm purpose-designed premises later this year.
We expect commercial property transaction volumes to pick up this year. Term deposit rates dropping below the 5% mark always brings a rise in investment levels into direct property, syndicates and funds. Inbound international capital remains cautious; however Christchurch has traditionally been the domain of locally-domiciled buyers and we are not expecting a significant shift in capital sources.
We do anticipate the return of some larger-scale transactions as the market continues to move towards the long-awaited meeting of the minds between sellers’ and buyers’ price expectations.
Christchurch is on the map. We’re no longer the next big thing, we are the big thing. The future of our region is tremendously exciting and there has never been a better time to be a Cantabrian.
Tim Rookes, Managing Director, CBRE Christchurch