Construction under way on Bowen campus near Parliament

Thursday, 6 April 2017

Bowen Campus construction has started in Wellington behind Parliament

It is full steam ahead for Precinct Properties $203 million upgrade of the Bowen campus near Parliament.

The Bowen State building - behind the Beehive - is on track to be finished in the first half of 2019, and the Charles Fergusson Tower is likely to be finished by the end of 2018.

The third building on the campus, the West Annex, and the car park might be redeveloped in the future, Precinct Properties said.

Construction of the new Bowen Campus buildings Behind the beehive will finish in 2019.

Work started in November 2016 and has so far resulted in the demolition of the Charles Fergusson and Bowen State building facades, seismic strengthening and a floor plan extension that will increase the area from 26,100 square metres to 38,400sqm.

**READ MORE:

Project manager Nick Morris (left), Precinct Properties chief executive Scott Pritchard and Precinct Properties Senior development manager Ryan Carter inspect the Bowen State Building extension.

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Most of the floor plan extension comes from the Bowen State building, which will increase its floor space by 2500sqm.

Precinct Properties chief executive Scott Pritchard said this was to accommodate the Government's requests for more open plan floor space.

'A lot of what we're building will be a response to what the Crown wanted,' Pritchard said.

The project includes strengthening the buildings to 100 per cent of the new building code, installing new lifts and new air conditioning systems, adding a curtain wall glass facade and 'fins' to the building exterior, rewiring, and extending floor plating in the Bowen State building.

Precinct Properties senior development manager Ryan Carter said the addition of 'fins' on the Bowen State building would mirror the Beehive's exterior.

'The two buildings will match quite nicely.'

Pritchard said Property Precinct has secured long term leases with the Government for the entire campus, save for three floors in the Bowen State building.

'It would make sense from our perspective to have [the Crown] lease those, but that's a conversation that we'll have with them down the track,' Pritchard said.

The lease of Bowen Campus, Pastoral House, Mayfair House, and 1 and 3 The Terrace to the Government was Precinct Properties largest ever transaction, which took three years to negotiate, Pritchard said.

The long-term leases were part of the Wellington Accommodation Project, which was aimed at reducing the amount of space leased by government agencies in Wellington and saving taxpayers a projected $333m over 20 years.

Precinct Properties has $1 billion dollars of development under way, and about $700m million in Wellington property, Pritchard said.

Pritchard said he did not know which government departments would be housed in the properties as the Government was 'continually reviewing occupancy plans' since November's earthquake. .

'Post the 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch we've had all of our assets 3D-modelled so what you can do then is overlay what happened in the Kaikoura earthquake and understand in quite a lot of detail what exactly happened and that gives us quite a lot of knowledge that is quite significant.'

Pritchard said after overlaying the Kaikoura earthquake shaking onto the model of Precinct's Bowen Campus building designs, it found it did not have to alter its designs.

Project Manager Nick Morris said he expected the reflective curtain wall facade to be finished by the end of the year, which would allow work on interior work like installing five new lifts.