"Wellington's largest"
Construction in front of railway station is progressing well. I'm quite excited about this project as I spend alot of time in the area.
Here's an
article from Stuff today about it.
Work has begun on Wellington's largest building - a $100 million office block - though the developer has yet to find a tenant.
Mark Dunajtschik has started work on the 33,000-square-metre building opposite Wellington railway station despite long-running negotiations with a prospective anchor tenant not yet securing a lease agreement.
Mr Dunajtschik said confidentiality provisions meant he could not reveal the prospective tenant's identity. However, property industry sources say it is the Inland Revenue Department.
Like some other government departments, IRD is spread across various buildings in Wellington's central business district and is seeking to achieve savings by putting most staff in one building.
An IRD spokeswoman said the department was reviewing its property requirements in Wellington but had made no commitment.
Mr Dunajtschik said negotiations had been going on for 16 months. Though they had not broken down, they had not resulted in a signed agreement.
In February Mr Dunajtschik decided to proceed regardless. He admitted it was risky to build such a large building with no confirmed tenants. "It's the biggest risk I've taken in my life."
By starting now he would have the building ready to meet timetables of other possible tenants. Contractor Fletcher Construction was also available to start work, an important consideration when a shortage of skilled labour was causing costs to rise.
Though not a single metre of the building had been leased, Mr Dunajtschik was confident that situation would change during construction. "It will be a green building in all respects. It will be state-of-the-art. We have a product that has an awful lot going for it."
He said the building's location and its design would attract interest. It would be finished in the third quarter of 2010.
Mr Dunajtschik, a former engineer, built the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry building on Lambton Quay and Environment House in Kate Sheppard Place.
Note that it says "largest" rather than tallest: presumably it'll be similar to the 14-storey proposal
posted a couple of years ago. Though it's worth noting that the article refers to it as 33,000 sq m, compared to the 47,600 sq m mentioned earlier. That may just be comparing office space to total space (including parking & retail), but on the other hand I
speculated last year that they might only use 75% of the available volume, perhaps to fit with the new Central Area Rules. I haven't seen a new rendering (there may be one in the physical paper - I'll check soon), but if they've done that by keeping the height but breaking it into smaller towers, then it could be a real improvement aesthetically. Time will tell just how "state of the art" it is.
uni students.
