The $1b Commercial Bay, whose mall was due to open on Saturday. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The $1b Commercial Bay, whose mall was due to open on Saturday. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Tower cranes will stand silent, concrete won't be poured and thousands of builders and tradespeople across New Zealand won't be on-site with alert Level 4 Covid-19 coming in tomorrow.
The Government's Unite against Covid-19 ranks as essential only some of the multi-billion dollar construction sector work sites.
It says only"building and construction related to essential services, critical infrastructure or immediately needed to maintain human health and safety at home or work" is ranked as essential.,
So only part of the sector will be able to operate in the next four weeks.
Four of this country's biggest businesses have already announced activities ending tomorrow.
Precinct Properties, finishing Auckland's $1 billion Commercial Bay, has just told the NZX all work will cease on what is New Zealand's highest-value building site and the almost-finished landmark waterfront tower.
Auckland's newest inner-city mall of 19,000sq m was due to open in the lower levels of Precinct's much-anticipated project this Saturday and 3200 office tenants are due to move into the 40-level office tower next month.
The rising alert status means most shops will shut, although supermarkets will remain open.
Precinct said it was "safely and securely" shutting that site on the corner of Queen St, Quay St and Lower Albert St which would mean yet further delays to that project.
"Commercial Bay is close to completion which will help limit the impact of the interruption," the statement said.
Ryman Healthcare, with 36 villages and 11,600 residents, also told the NZX today its construction sites would cease work for the next four weeks.
Ryman had 22 sites in a land bank, of which 10 had development under way, it said last year. Once its had completed the then-planned development, it would have more than 20,000 people in its villages, it forecast previously.
New Zealand's wealthiest family-owned commercial developers, Mansons TCLM, is also shutting sites of two new buildings it has sold in a three-building deal worth around $700m:155 Fanshawe St in front of Datacom House and 136 Fanshawe St opposite the Viaduct Basin.
Culum Manson said today: "Come tomorrow, we will be shutting down our sites to assist in repelling Covid-19. We're so far ahead of programme, we can stop for a rest anyway."
The 155 Fanshawe St site is to be premises for KiwiBank, Southern Cross and Genesis while 136 Fanshawe St is for more than 600 2degrees from Newmarket and 240 Meredith Connell from the BDO Centre at 2 Graham St opposite the new block.
Manson said new construction work was finishing on new headquarters for Mansons TCLM on St George's Bay Rd, Parnell so that site was unaffected tomorrow.
City Rail Link said today work on that $4.4b project would stop immediately for four weeks.
"Our immediate priority is ensuring the safety of our people and the security of our sites," said CRL chief executive Sean Sweeney. "We will ensure that appropriate measures are put in place to keep each site and the surrounding areas safe."
Many project staff could continue working from home and would do so as the shutdown continue, he said.
"We are doing everything we can to ensure that we are well-placed to come out of the blocks very fast when the restart call is given," he said.
The Construction Industry Council said it was seeing "a fair bit of fear" in the sector although chairperson Graham Burke said many major building companies had swung their standard crisis responses into place already.
Others, particularly smaller firms, were still trying to gauge the impacts, he said.
