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Is Drury Becoming Auckland's Next Albany?

  • Writer: Kieran Trass
    Kieran Trass
  • 1 day ago
  • 3 min read
Aerial view of Drury and South Auckland transport infrastructure projects
Image source: NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi – Auckland via Facebook

As I drive around Drury today I see Albany, 30 years ago. Not because I expect Drury's prices to repeat Albany's exact trajectory. Both started the same way as a big greenfield block on Auckland's fringe, paddocks all around, with the infrastructure and urban development still to come.


I know that Albany story because in 1996 I bought a new-build home in one of Albany's earlier residential developments for $250,000. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double garage, 150sqm on a 519sqm site. Today it’s worth around $1.5 million, but the sixfold gain isn't the interesting part. It’s what happened to Albany after I bought there that provides context for the Drury development happening today.


Albany in 1996 was paddocks, full stop


It's easy to forget how little was there. Massey's Albany campus had opened just three years earlier on what the university itself called "bare paddocks", teaching its first students out of prefab buildings. A 1998 New Zealand Geographic feature caught Albany mid-transformation: orchards and farmland giving way to roads, subdivisions, industry, a new town centre.


When I bought in, none of this existed yet:


  • North Harbour Stadium

  • The motorway extension north to Silverdale

  • Albany Bus Station

  • The Northern Busway

  • Westfield Albany, still 11 years off


I wasn't buying the Albany people know today. I was buying what it was about to become. That's why Drury has got my attention now.


Drury is past the planning stage


Drury still looks like greenfield country, but the infrastructure behind it is no longer just lines on a map. The Drury railway station opened in August 2026. The Paerātā Station opened with it, and Ngākōroa Station at Drury West is under construction.


The SH1 Papakura-to-Drury upgrade is underway and so is the Waihoehoe Road upgrade, which will connect Great South Road, the new railway station and Drury East. Water and wastewater infrastructure is being expanded to carry tens of thousands more residents. Auckland isn't planning Drury as another housing subdivision. It's planning it to be a metropolitan centre.


And the money is following


Kiwi Property is well into its 53-hectare Drury development, with Stage 1 civil works underway. The big retailers are already locking in sites: Costco, Foodstuffs, Harvey Norman, Briscoes.


About 77% of the Stage 1 large format retail land earmarked for sale is already under contract, roughly $115 million worth. Costco's move says the most with its proposed 6.4-hectare site which is meant to serve not just South Auckland, but Hamilton and the wider Waikato.


Drury sits on State Highway 1, on the rail network, and directly on the Auckland-Waikato growth corridor. This looks likely to end up being a lot more than just another residential suburb of Auckland.


One thing I won't do is compare the houses directly


My Albany property and a typical new Drury property aren't the same thing.



So no, I'm not saying apply Albany's sixfold gain to Drury nor do I expect a $900,000 property today to become worth $5.4 million in another 30 years. That's not the argument. Look at the location, not the arithmetic on one house.


The lesson from Albany


Infrastructure changed Albany first. Then roads improved, housing followed, population grew, retail arrived, businesses and jobs came, and the transport links improved again. These changes also unfolded across different stages of the Auckland property market cycle. Paddocks on Auckland's fringe turned into one of the North Shore's major centres. It took decades. 


Drury looks like it's near the commencement of the same process although the infrastructure is already arriving and fast:


  • Trains are running

  • The motorway is being upgraded

  • New arterial roads are going in

  • Water infrastructure is expanding

  • Major retailers are committing

  • Thousands of homes are planned

  • A metropolitan centre is taking shape


Thirty years ago I bought into Albany while most of what's there today was still paddocks and plans. The only houses being built were well located, being close to the major planned amenities at the time, and I see the same pattern in Drury development today. Whilst I can't tell you what a Drury property will be worth in 2056 I have watched the process of Auckland taking a greenfield location before then building an entire city around it so know what’s likely to happen to the location as a result. You only have to look at Albany today.


That's why I think Drury deserves serious attention now.


Source article re Costco:

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