The Britomart – Auckland, NZ

Sara Ballantyne, Development Manager for Cooper and Company and Terry Buchan, Construction Manager for Hawkins Construction met us to tour the new buildings being constructed. The development is 5.8 hectors consisting of 17 heritage buildings with a 125 year ground lease.  They have 7 new buildings of which all are green star rated.  They were the first to have one of the heritage buildings to obtain the green star rating.  The East building will have a 5 Star rating when completed.  They also have a 1250 car park under construction called the Oriental carpark which is one of the largest in the Western hemisphere.  The building is built above the train station and actually floats above it with K-joints supporting it.  The east building has a wastewater tank system as well as catching rainwater off the building. Originally, there were plans for 14 luxury apartments on the top floors for a mere 3-4 million dollars ranging in size from 120 square meters to 160 square meters but they changed it back due to the world economic problems. Sara told us it costs 210 Million to build it with a total of 40,000 square meters of space.  The area is set up as a precinct which means they charge for rent, operating expenses, all precinct costs including valet, janitorial, security, etc..

The buildings first floor is retail and is 70% preleased and the office space is 100% preleased to Westpac (similar to Bank of America) 50%, Ernst and Young 30% and Southern Cross 20%.  It was pretty cool to tour the space and see where Westpac CEO’s office was and the views he had.  Also to walk the new E&Y space was a treat.  Very nice build outs in both areas.

A couple interesting notes to close with.  In the center of the buildings, the do not lease the airspace so when they built a couple connecting cross walks, the had to pay for the airspace.  Westpac had several of the floors cut out to create an open space for several floors and not only did the pay to to the work they also still pay for the square meters of floor space where there is no longer floor space.  Finally, when completed they will add 3000 people to the area for a total of 4500 people.