$650m project defies WFH fears
Everyone pushed [pause] due to Covid but there’s such strong demand from occupiers for new buildings. Culum Manson (inset)
A $650 million office block project is rising a block from Auckland’s waterfront in New Zealand’s largest newlyannounced commercial construction project.
Culum Manson of Mansons TCLM said despite predictions of falling demand for new offices, so many tenants had contacted the family business that the 15-level project began without leasing any precommitment due to the firm’s confidence about signing leases well before construction completion.
Mansons bought a new $1m-plus eight-storey Australian crane and erected that at Fifty Albert last month to work on the 28,873sq m office block which would be finished by late 2023/early 2024.
For 152 years, the New Zealand Herald occupied the Queen/wyndham/swanson/ Albert St block and in 2015 it left Manson’s site for NZME Central, 2 Graham St, the new BDO House also built by Mansons. That building is now owned by an ex-augusta Capital now-centuria Capitalrun syndicate.
Culum Manson said other features of the new Fifty Albert would be:
● quarter-hectare floor plates of 2300sq m;
● around 3000 people to work on 12 office floors;
● 637sq m ground-floor retail;
● 206 car parks in three basement levels;
● Albert St main reception, Mills Lane frontage too;
● 3m internal stud heights;
● targeting six-star world leadership green star rating;
● naming rights for sale. Zoltan Moricz of CBRE said: “Of the currently-under way office projects, it’s the biggest in New Zealand. There are bigger existing buildings though such as Commercial Bay, Vero and a few more all above 30,000sq m.”
Chris Haines of consultants Rider Levett Bucknall said: “This project is the biggest commercial one to kick off this year in New Zealand but there’s certainly more in the pipeline.”
Manson said: “This new building will be the most sustainably built six-star green-rated building in Auckland’s CBD. We’re taking environmental aspects to a new level as well as including wellness aspects into its design so people really want to come to work.”
He acknowledged $500m plans for the site were made pre-covid and shelved temporarily last year but strong demand prompted reignition.
“Everyone pushed the pause button due to Covid but there’s such strong demand from occupiers for new buildings.
“The reason for a project this size is that people like new buildings. It’s more important for office tenants to upgrade to new buildings now than it ever has been in the past. That’s because business owners . . . want their staff to come into work so the culture of their business is preserved.
“That’s much harder to maintain if everyone’s working from home,” he said.
“Also, human beings are sociable and we get benefits from being around each other — particularly in the workplace environment,” he said.
Mansons is also building new $250m offices on Carlton Gore Rd, Newmarket without any tenant precommitment.
“People want to go to the office still,” Manson said of predictions of the office’s demise.
Auckland Transport’s major upgrade of Albert St had made Albert St “the new Queen St”, Manson said, and the $4.4 billion City Rail Link further enhanced the area’s connections, with stations at Britomart and Aotea.
— Anne Gibson