Telecom HQ taking shape

Luke Manson (left) and Gary Young are working on the largest single commercial job in Auckland. Photo / Greg Bowker

A new home for 2500 Telecom staff is rising fast on a vast Auckland inner- city fringe site of almost 1ha.

The new four-building campus is being developed by private company Mansons TCLM on the site bounded by Victoria St West, Dock St and Hardinge St. It will provide space for staff from eight different Telecom sites around Auckland.

Behind street hoardings, four tower cranes are swinging on the site in the block between TVNZ and Victoria Park Markets directly opposite Les Mills.

Gary Young, Mansons' construction manager, said the site for the $250 million building was the largest single commercial job going on in Auckland, easily outstripping Cooper & Company's new East Building rising in the Britomart Precinct and being built by Hawkins Construction.

At 7800sq m, the Telecom site is just 2200sq m off being 1ha, making it the single biggest city office building platform in New Zealand, Young said.

Four buildings of about 30,000sq m now span the site and the Australian-manufactured double-glazed glass curtain wall cladding will soon be applied.

Mansons will retain ownership of the buildings and lease them to the single tenant on an initial 12-year term, a deal which Luke Manson said was the single largest leasing deal struck in New Zealand.

He does not see the family business, headed by his father Ted Manson, as retaining ownership throughout the entire 12-year lease term and cited the $113 million sale of the Manson-developed high-rise Lumley Centre on Shortland St to Deutsche Bank and the sale of two Quay Park buildings to HIH for $156 million as examples.

Each of the four buildings are slightly different and Mansons has coded them alphabetically.

The seven-level Building A is on the northwest Dock St side of the site. Its neighbour is the eight-level Building B on the northern front on the Hardinge St or city side.

Behind them, both flanking Victoria St, is the six-level Building C on the western side and the seven-level Building D on the eastern or city side.

In between these buildings, a quadrangle has been created which is a central atrium area. Its most distinguishing feature is a large internal flight of stairs about 12m wide, under which the Telecom auditorium or theatre space is housed.

"We're referring to these as the Spanish Steps," Young said.

Telecom's head of corporate property, Jim Robb, said other less central locations were rejected because of staff preferences, public transport, the location of customers, partners and suppliers.

"We could have gone south or west or north and paid a lower rent. When when we did a massive demographic study on where our people live it became apparent there would be significant impact to lots of people if we went anywhere other than the city centre."

The opportunity to get this building near city transport hubs such as Britomart and the ferry terminals was a chance to get people out of their cars.

Telecom also actively rejected the prospect of one dedicated high-rise because, Robb said, vertical offices created vertical separation through their very nature.