Plans for another big-box retailer for Wānaka - the Warehouse - have been submitted to the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC). 

The whopping 3,900sqm+ Warehouse store proposed for Three Parks is part of a broader application by Allan Dippie’s Willowridge Development’s Ltd for two large format retail buildings.

The Warehouse would be the largest of the nine units across the two buildings.

It would be joined by retailers Noel Leeming and Warehouse Stationery - which are also owned by umbrella company The Warehouse Group. 

There are more than 90 Warehouse stores across New Zealand but Wānaka residents are currently an hour’s drive from the nearest store, which is located in Frankton. 

The Warehouse, ‘where everyone gets a bargain’, as its slogan goes, is best-known for its broad range of affordably priced goods.

Application documents say the new retail buildings would result in an “improved and competitively priced offer of household, whiteware and general goods available locally in the community…”

The new Warehouse would be located in Three Parks on Wānaka’s outskirts.

It would also bring new jobs to Wānaka, the application said. 

Allan Dippie told the Wānaka App last year there were “three or four big projects on the boil”, including national and international retail sites near the supermarket.

“The steady roll out of Three Parks is going well: we are not in a race to complete it however,” he said. “We want to achieve a well-planned, well executed development that locates everything in the exact right place at the right time for the town’s growth.”

“We have a big responsibility to get this project right, and I think we are, but ultimately it’s the Wānaka community that will be the judge of that one as it continues to expand.”

Willowridge has not yet received sign-off for the new stores - QLDC has asked for more information before progressing the application. 

The proposed Warehouse store would be located to the north of the New World Three Parks. 

PHOTOS: Supplied