Discussions were continuing between the developers of the second stage of the Remarkables Park Town Centre and several national stores "not yet represented in Queenstown", Remarkables Park Ltd director Alastair Porter said.
The next stage of the town centre - which on completion will more than double the size of the existing shopping centre - is well under way, and initial groundwork is expected to be finished by the end of this month.
The extraction of 177,000cu m of dirt on 5ha of land alongside the existing centre would bring the land down to the level of the existing stores and enable a "seamless transition" between the established and new buildings, Mr Porter said.
Five large-format stores ranging from 1500sq m to 6000sq m in size are planned for the site, along with 1000 car-park spaces, staff and tertiary student accommodation.
"Remarkables Park Ltd is in the process of planning buildings for resource consent applications.
"There's no reason why some of these stores couldn't start building in 2011.
"Our goal is to continue to expand Remarkables Park as a one-stop shopping and service destination, bringing even more choice and greater affordability to Queenstown," he said.
While Mr Porter could not comment on which stores RPL was in discussions with, he said they were "big national retailers that we're missing; none of them are here in Queenstown at this stage".
Remarkables Park at present has 24 retail stores and 19 businesses operating from office tenancies, providing jobs for about 350 people in the shopping centre.
The architecture for all of the new landscaping and buildings would be carefully designed to complement and enhance Remarkables Park as a "high-quality second town centre for Queenstown".
"If anything, we'll be striving to do an even better landscaping job, with further emphasis on fully integrated pedestrian and community amenities."
The new stores and multistorey accommodation units would be accessed via an extension of Hawthorne Dr leading to a new entry road called Red Oaks Dr.
The new road will access the next stage of development at the Remarkables Quay Resort Village, on the banks of the Kawarau River looking up to The Remarkables mountain range.
In the future, the extension would also be accessed from the new Eastern Access Rd, which will join Hawthorne Dr.
One-third of the 1.5 million vehicles a year that access Remarkables Park will access the centre through the new road, which will eventually run around Queenstown Airport's runway-end safety area, now under construction, and link to State Highway 6, near Glenda Dr.
Mr Porter said the Eastern Access Rd would be complete by March 31, 2011.
In total, Remarkables Park Ltd had eight separate activity zones under the district plan.
On completion, the development will include low- and high-density residential housing; parks, reserves and open spaces; a care precinct, including a hospital, retirement village and daycare centre; and a "boutique village" with visitor accommodation, among other facilities.
