Star-grazing: $300m apartment tower project hits 50th floor
Construction of New Zealand’s tallest apartment tower reached the 50th floor this week.
For the past few months, floors 40 and above have been under construction in the 187m block which is the $300 million Seascape in Auckland’s Britomart area on Customs St East, a block from the waterfront. The block is to be 56 levels when it’s finished.
Simon Ma, of developer Shundi Customs, said structural steel had this week reached level 50.
The soaring project is by that Asian developer. China Construction is building it.
By June this year, the tower had reached the 41st level so the builders have completed another nine floors in the past three months.
Ma updated progress on the soaring block yesterday, saying level 50 was a hallmark.
The project isn’t due to be finished until the end of next year, he said. The topping-out ceremony where formwork rises to level 56 is due before Christmas, Ma said. “That’s the target.”
The block has been rising progressively, changing our skyline and visible from kilometres away.
Hundreds of people will live in the tower, which has a number of underground floors for parking.
Nearby, The Pacifica is 57 levels and 178m tall. That makes it slightly shorter than what Seascape will be, even though it has one more floor. The Herald covered this in an article in 2018 headlined “Skyscraper wars: new 187m Auckland tower claims record”.
Last November, the Herald reported Seascape was at the 35th floor. Ma said then about two and a half floors were rising every month. About 150 workers are on the site.
By Christmas 2022, China Construction was due to reach level
40, Ma said last November. “This is the highest floor our standard apartments go. By the start of the new year we will begin the sub-penthouse floors.”
Back then, around half the units had been sold. All up, the tower will have 221.
Ma didn’t provide an update on the sales progress but acknowledged the residential market is in a more difficult position than it was a year ago.
Shundi Customs says Seascape will be the tallest residential tower here “and a magnificent sculptural addition to the Auckland skyline. The striking design — with its angular glass form and lattice mega-brace — is the product of a dynamic collaboration between developers Shundi and architects Peddlethorp”.
Shundi Customs is a subsidiary of Shundi Group, an international development company with headquarters in Shanghai. The business has a portfolio of developments in China and overseas.
Property records show Shundi Customs owns 69, 71, 87 and 95 to 105 Customs St East in Auckland.
Shundi Queenstown owns 53 and 65 Frankton Rd, Queenstown.
Shundi Tamaki Village owns 259, 261 and 263 Morrin Rd, Saint Johns in Auckland.
In 2016, the Herald reported the world’s biggest construction company had arrived quietly in New Zealand for work worth $375m.
China Construction New Zealand — part of the giant China State Construction Engineering Corporation — was announced on Friday as having won the $200m contract to build the Park Hyatt Hotel in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter. That was completed, but it never built the $175m St James apartment tower on Queen St.