A four-storey mass timber office building rising on the former Heretaunga House site in the heart of Hastings says a lot about where Hawke’s Bay’s commercial property market is heading, even while the wider economy takes its time to find its feet.
The development at 300 Lyndon Road East, built by owners Tumu Property, comprises around 5,000 square metres of office space, with tenancies ranging from 200 to 1,000 square metres. Tumu businesses will take about 700 square metres as their new headquarters, and Hastings District Council has committed to 1,950 square metres, consolidating staff currently spread across multiple sites closer to the civic precinct. Strong pre-commitment on a building that isn’t finished yet tells its own story.
It’s also built for the moment. The project is targeting a 5-star NABERSNZ rating, with energy-efficient lighting, EV charging, end-of-trip facilities and secure bike storage. New office stock built to modern occupier expectations has been thin on the ground in Hastings for years, and businesses upgrading from older premises now have somewhere genuinely new to go.
Across town in Stortford Lodge, a rare industrial and trade retail opportunity has opened up on the corner of Maraekakaho and Orchard Roads. PGG Wrightson has occupied the site for more than 50 years and is relocating to Omahu Road, freeing up two buildings totalling around 4,312 square metres on a 15,136 square metre landholding, with dual access and generous yard space. It suits a logistics or distribution operator as easily as it suits trade retail or a bulk goods showroom, and a site with that much exposure on a major intersection doesn’t come up often.
The activity fits a broader pattern. Infometrics data shows total business units in Hastings District reached 11,373 in February 2025, up 0.2 percent on the year, with growth averaging 2 percent annually over the past ten years. Steady, not spectacular, but steady is not nothing in this environment.
Because the environment is genuinely mixed. New Zealand’s commercial property market has been slower than expected through the first half of 2026, dragged down by two years of elevated global economic policy uncertainty that has bled into domestic decision-making.
The upcoming election adds a layer of local unease, though it tends to matter less to commercial property performance here than what is happening on the global stage.
And what’s happening globally is a reset. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in January, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney put it plainly: “We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.” Since then, oil price spikes from ongoing wars and relentless AI investment have kept global uncertainty elevated.
Yet confidence is building. Of 13 commercial property markets surveyed nationally in June 2026, 11 recorded positive sentiment for the next 12 months, up from just six in the immediate aftermath of the Iran war. Eight regions are more positive now than they were at the start of the year. Investors haven’t stopped being cautious. They’ve just stopped waiting.
That’s the pattern showing up on Lyndon Road and in Stortford Lodge too. The investors and occupiers moving now aren’t ignoring the uncertainty. They’ve decided it’s not going away, and are getting on with business anyway.
Danny Blair is a commercial property specialist with Colliers Hawke’s Bay. For more information, contact Danny on 021 826 496 or danny.blair@colliers.com.
Tremain Commercial Ltd, Colliers licensed under the REAA 2008.
