Scott Pritchard from Precinct Properties updates on The Commercial Bay Project. / Video by Doug Sherring
Auckland's $941 million Commercial Bay project is more than a third of the way up, with Fletcher Construction having built 16 of the planned 39 levels of the new office tower.
Scott Pritchard, chief executive of Precinct Properties NZ, gave a progress update on the new PwC tower, now rising at the Customs St end of the site between lower Albert St, Quay St and lower Queen St.
The building is the tallest and most expensive commercial office tower under construction in New Zealand, and Pritchard said about 250 workers were on the site daily.
"At the moment we're seeing the office tower start to really emerge out of the ground. We have a diagrid steel structure. That's the supporting frame for the tower and on site at the moment, we're sitting at about level 16," he said.
The diagrid frame is a structural system, commonly adopted in tall buildings overseas due to its structural efficiency and flexibility in architectural planning.
Pritchard said it was satisfying to see progress on the site, though Aucklanders have yet to see the skyline change dramatically as the tower climbs.
"We clearly have a long way to go in terms of the remaining construction of the tower," he said of the block, planned to be up by mid-2019.
Construction of the twin-tunnel city rail link (CRL) is clearly visible from above the site. The two tunnels are on the seaward side of the new PwC tower.
Commercial Bay (centre) is due to be finished in the next two years.
Commercial Bay will have 120 retail outlets, bars and restaurants, up from an original tally of 100, Pritchard said. The basement structure for that three-level centre is being built at the Quay St end of the site, next to the CRL, and the new three-level carparking area is going beneath the retail centre.
"Very shortly our hope is that we'll see that structure really get up to ground floor, and some way through next year we'll start to see the structure of the retail emerge. Before Christmas we hope to see some of the facades installed on the tower and that's when people will lose sight of the steel," Pritchard said.
The tower's services - including lifts and toilets - are at its Customs St face, giving occupants seamless views to the waterfront. Each 1400sq m floor has only three steel columns standing in the middle, Pritchard said, and these are clearly visible now.
Glass is being imported from Germany and the new curtain wall facade would soon be erected, creating the tower's external envelope.
Two-thirds of the office tower has been leased. A JLL valuation this year estimated the project would be worth $941m once it was finished.
Scott Pritchard above the site. Photo/Doug Sherring
A recently announced 14 per cent rise in New Zealand steel prices made no difference to costs, Pritchard said, because the contract with Fletcher was fixed-price.
Precinct's Andrew Buckingham is general manager of developments and David Johnson is Commercial Bay project director. Pritchard said a team of about 10 Precinct staff were solely dedicated to the project.
Precinct this week launched a capital raising scheme, planning to raise up to $100m from a seven-year bond issue to repay bank debt.
