Skyscraper PwC Tower opens in Auckland after eight years of planning and construction
Saturday, 25 July 2020
New Zealand’s tallest office building, the PwC Tower, opens for business today on the waterfront in downtown Auckland, after eight years in planning and construction.
Standing about 180 metres tall, the 39-level steel and glass tower offers 39,000 square metres of Auckland’s premium and – at around $700 to $800 a square metre – likely priciest office space. It is fully leased.
It also boasts the country’s fastest lifts, travelling at 8 metres a second. At that speed it would take just 22.5 seconds from bottom to top in the lift.
“I must admit it’s pretty exciting going up in the lifts, certainly those on the outside where it’s fully glazed and you get to look out over the city as you’re travelling that fast up 180 metres,” said Scott Pritchard, the chief executive of Precinct Properties, which developed and owns the tower.
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The first tenants, accounting firm PwC which has taken naming rights for the tower, and investment advisors Jarden, move in today with many others following over the next three months. The tower can house about 2500 to 4000 office workers.
The tower is at the heart of the $1 billion Commercial Bay office and retail development which was officially opened on June 11 with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cutting the ceremonial ribbon. Many of the 120 plus fashion and food retailers in the retail centre of 18,000sqm metres, at the base of the tower, opened their doors.
“Certainly, in a value sense it’s the biggest commercial project in New Zealand. I’d say, as far as I’m aware, it’s definitely the most complex vertical construction project in New Zealand,” Pritchard said.
Two railway tunnels and three basement carparking tunnels sit underneath it below sea level, plus three levels of retail and the 39-level office tower – connected with four other buildings – made it a seriously challenging project.
Commercial Bay had cost $720 million to construct but there are still a few extra costs related to Covid-19 to come in. However, the value of the whole development will be just north of $1 billion, so the development profit is about $280m.
But that profit was not the driver, said Pritchard. Their driver was to create a world-class asset in Auckland to improve the quality of the Precinct business and assets. The other focus was the returns on the asset which supported its business and dividends to its shareholders.
Rental income from the tower and retail centre is expected to be about $50m a year.
Pritchard estimated about 10,000 people had worked on the project over the eight years in planning and construction.
“It’s an enormous investment and … to be honest it feels a little bit surreal at the moment because there’s a huge team that has worked on this project for eight years and it’s now complete.”
The development was of a calibre unlike anything seen in New Zealand, he said.
The land for Commercial Bay, formerly the Downtown Shopping Centre, was bought in 2012, designing started in 2013 and construction started in June 2016, with the retail centre initially expected to open in October 2018 and the tower in mid-2019.
However, construction delays through the project and then the impact of Covid-19 pushed the opening dates out further to June 2020 for the retail centre and July 2020 for the tower. The main contractor Fletcher Construction paid Precinct $52m in liquidated damages for delays to the project.
“The technology and the quality of the amenity and the thinking that has gone into this tower, it is world class and we’ve done a huge amount of research globally and taken the best of what we’ve seen and tried to instil it in this building,” Pritchard said.
As well as the latest technologies, the building also has the amenities for a modern workplace, said Pritchard, such as changing rooms and meeting rooms for tenants, so they did not have to create their own.
The tower had been built to some of the highest earthquake and wind resilient standards in New Zealand, as would be expected of an emergency hospital, he said. It had multiple environmentally friendly features, such as like a highly energy-efficient air conditioning system and advanced ventilation system, and had a 5-Green Star building rating.
For the next three years, Precinct had a $500m plus line-up of development projects to continue with. It had delayed the start of the $300m One Queen Street hotel and office development but hoped to get started next year. It would be completing its 10 Madden Stoffice development in the Wynyard Quarter this year also.
It had already started excavation and piling to stabilise the 40 Bowen St site in Wellington near Parliament for a new $90m building and wanted to get started on a second, similar-sized building at 44 Bowen St this year, he said.