Tenants take precautions over steel

Tenants of a Wellington high-rise are being told the steel holding them up stretched during the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura quake.

The building, at 36 Customhouse Quay, was one of 80 that Wellington City Council ordered to undergo extra testing due to potential faults discovered after the Kaikoura quake, which hit on November 14.

Andrew Cotterrell, one of the building’s owners, said an engineer’s report came back on Friday which revealed the jolt had caused steel in the building to stretch. .

Engineers did not say tenants had to be moved out but suggested their findings needed to be peerreviewed, Cotterrell said.

But the building’s owners had told some tenants, and planned to tell all of them, of the problems. Three tenants had decided to temporarily relocate, Cotterrell said.

The building has 12 commercial floors plus four apartments, which were already empty while they were being refurbished.

Richard Findlay, managing director of Colliers International, said a decision had been made for staff to work from home today as the company’s engineers digested the 70-page report.

‘‘We won’t know what the implications are until our engineers look at the report. It might be nothing or it might be compelling, but until there’s certainty as a precaution our staff won’t be coming in,’’ Findlay said.

A report, released this month by crisis management firm Kestrel Group, identified 80 Wellington buildings including 36 Customhouse Quay for intensive earthquake testing. The 80 buildings were chosen because they shared similar characteristics to Statistics House, on Wellington’s waterfront, which partially collapsed in November’s Kaikoura earthquake. One of the shared characteristics was that each had a reinforced concrete structure, particularly with precast floors.