It will be another few weeks before six remaining pieces of Dunedin's Wall Street jigsaw puzzle are known to shoppers.
Six of the planned 18 retail tenants expected to occupy spots in the $32 million shopping mall are still to be confirmed, and are now not expected to be unveiled until the end of the month, Wall Street project manager Dave Mackenzie said.
Already seven retailers - Country Road, Levis, Esprit, Tarocash, Lush, Vodafone and Life Pharmacy - have been confirmed and named, and another five confirmed but not yet identified.
It had been hoped the six remaining would be confirmed last week, but Mr Mackenzie said negotiations were continuing, and blamed the delays on the busy Christmas holiday period.
He now hoped to have most, if not all, of the negotiations completed by the end of the month.
The six in talks were all fashion stores that did not already have outlets in Dunedin.
Attracting retailers in a time of economic turmoil had been a particular challenge, but the battle was being won and construction and costs were "going to plan", he said.
"The challenge has always been the changing economy and the effect on retailing and the ability to get new retailers coming to Dunedin.
"That's an ever bigger challenge - to convince them [retailers], in times of lowering economy, that they should be coming to Dunedin. They want to go to places that are more secure and have a larger population - Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Australia."
However, delays confirming the final six retailers were not due to the economic climate, he said, "It's more the time of year slowing us up than actual unwillingness."
A "soft opening" was scheduled for March 5, once individual shops were fitted out, then a formal opening later in March, possibly as early as March 7.
