Commercial vacancy rates

Why it's important

The take-up and use of commercial floorspace is an indicator of good economic performance. Low vacancy levels mean that businesses are expanding or being created. High vacancy rates can mean that economic conditions are difficult or that there is an oversupply of floorspace.

Key points

• In 2019, there were 2.15 million square metres of building floor space in the Christchurch central city, including the South Frame and Victoria Street. This included 557,200 square metres of office floorspace, 296,500 square metres of retail floorspace and 172,200 square metres of hospitality floorspace.
• Vacant floorspace comprised 297,400 square metres (14%), with 1.85 million square metres of floorspace in use.

Note this is an interactive chart and you can select the legend items to change what is shown on the graph.

Commentary

Over the past few years as Christchurch has been rebuilt following the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, the amount of retail floorspace in the central city has been growing. In 2014, there was 98,000 square metres of retail floorspace in the central city. By 2019, there was an additional 198,500 square metres of retail floorspace – double the amount of retail floorspace in the central city in 2014.