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Speaker 1: One of New Zealand's oldest and most iconic department stores,

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Speaker 1: Smith and Coey's, has found a way to partially save itself.

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Speaker 1: The company has backtracked on a full closure, now deciding

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Speaker 1: to shut its Newmarket store and downsize it's Queen Street

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Speaker 1: one while focusing on online sales part of the city.

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Speaker 1: Chief executive Viv Beck is with me this morning. Good morning, Viv,

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Speaker 1: good morning. This is good news for the city, right, It's.

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Speaker 2: Great news, it really is. I mean, it's always sad

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Speaker 2: to think of a business closing. This keeps jobs for

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Speaker 2: one hundred people. It's from our perspective, great to see

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Speaker 2: it stay in that particular area. We've got a lot

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Speaker 2: of you know, construction still happening, but a positive future.

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Speaker 2: I think this is a good sign of confidence in

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Speaker 2: the future of Queen Street.

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Speaker 1: When is Queen Street going to actually become somewhere that

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Speaker 1: you go to. I was driving through there yesterday. It

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Speaker 1: takes you half an hour to get from one side

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Speaker 1: to the other. There's you know, beggars, not homeless people,

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Speaker 1: but beggars people who are grow on the street. It's

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Speaker 1: not a place you want to go at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think that's part of a challenge, and we've

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Speaker 2: raked all of these issues with counsel and at to

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Speaker 2: make this a better environment while we wait for the

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Speaker 2: CRL to open, which is CRL, the conventions, and there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of sort of milestone investments coming through in

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Speaker 2: the next couple of years. The safety has had.

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Speaker 1: A lot of work.

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Speaker 2: There's still work to do. We accept that, but a

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Speaker 2: lot of work has happened and is happening as we speak.

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Speaker 2: But I think it's really looking to that period. It's

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Speaker 2: a period from now to when the CRL opens and

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Speaker 2: the end at ICC is open. There is a lot

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Speaker 2: of investment which does give positive shows the confidence in

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Speaker 2: the future of Queen Street. But I think as long

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Speaker 2: as we get some progress on the things we've been

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Speaker 2: asking to happen in that area to make it a

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Speaker 2: better place for people and business right now through this period,

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Speaker 2: having Smith and Coley live on in Queen Street is positive.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely with you. It's a brilliant, iconic store

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Speaker 1: and to have some presence still there will be important.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for your time.

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Speaker 3: And for more from News Talks ed B listen live

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