Concerns over giant Sylvia Park crane unfounded

The crane at Sylvia Park this morning. Photo/supplied

A giant crane's apparently unusual angle on an Auckland building site startled one observer this morning who claimed the structure had fallen over - but he was wrong.

The owner of the Mt Wellington property where the crane has been working for months gave a reassurance, saying the crane was just being moved on the site, nothing had gone wrong and there were no issues.

"A crane has fallen over," a Herald reader claimed this morning reporting what he thought were problems at the Sylvia Park shopping, office and dining area.

An image sent by another person nearby did indeed show the tower crane at an unusual leaning angle, leaning towards the ground.

But Clive Mackenzie, chief executive of Kiwi Property which owns Sylvia Park where the crane has been working, said there were no issues.

"It's just the tower crane at Sylvia Park being moved," Mackenzie said. "It takes about four days to move these, dismantling them. To a casual observer, it might look like it has fallen over. But it hasn't. Cranes do get moved from time to time and it's just part of the process."

The crane is on the Naylor Love site, where more shops and carparking are being built at Sylvia Park.

Kiwi shows expansion at Sylvia Park. Photo/Kiwi Property

The $258m expansion, the Galleria, is an additional 19,000sq m of retail space featuring 60 new tenancies including Farmers and a new 900-vehicle carpark. That project is due to open mid next year and Kiwi said today it was on programme. Negotiations are being finalised with key national and international tenants.

This morning, Kiwi also announced its annual profit, up 15 per cent for the March 31, 2019 year from $120m to $138m. Kiwi chairman Mark Ford said part of the reason for the rise was having its portfolio weighted so much towards Auckland and Hamilton where so much economic activity was happening.

Revenue rose 3 per cent to $286m.

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