Tenants ready to move into second Union Square building

Wednesday, 4 October 2023

The second Union Square office building’s completion is due in just over a week. In February, the target finish was last month.

The big new second office building at the Union Square project in the CBD is nearing completion, slightly behind an earlier late September target but it’s now fully tenanted.

Foster Group’s Rhys Harvey at the Union Square carpark opening earlier this year.

In February, project director Rhys Harvey of Foster Group said the second building - near the corner of Anglesea and Hood streets - was due to be ready last month and already had a 90% lease rate.

Tenant names appear to have started being put up.

On Tuesday he confirmed the building was fully tenanted, would be finished shortly and was due to get a certificate of public use from the city council on October 10.

A Waikato Times visit to the site on Tuesday showed external work still in progress with some tenant names appearing to have been put up already.

However, tenants won’t actually shift in until council sign-off has been obtained.

Harvey declined to say for commercial reasons how much the just under 5000m² building had cost to construct.

The second building site is still fenced off to the public.

The project’s building 3, facing Alexandra St, is next off the block once enough tenant interest is confirmed.

“That’s consented and ready to go, and we’re just in discussions with tenants now,” Harvey said.

The start to construction of building three “will depend on leasing interest…but we’d like to be starting that mid-next year”.

On buildings four and five, he said a start would again depend on leasing interest.

“But hopefully we’ve proved ourselves…so it’s the intention to get them done as soon as we can get deals together.”

One commercial property source suggested tighter economic times and higher leasing costs could create hesitancy amongst potential tenants.

Asked for his thoughts, Harvey said: “I would share the same hesitancy as everybody else has got within the business environment at the moment around things, so it wouldn’t be sensible to say no we didn’t.

Finishing work on the buildings exterior.

“But what I would say on the flipside is we have got a good offering there, particularly in the next building which is consented.

“Our cautiousness would be balanced by the lack of premium grade developments on offer within the city at this time,” Harvey said.

It was getting easier to lease space in building three “because people can start to see the vision”.

When completed, Union Square is due to offer over 23,000m² of office space, spread over five buildings in the precinct, the project’s website says.

In addition, there will be retail space, community spaces and areas dedicated to the wellness of residents and the local community.

The building near the corner of Anglesea and Hood streets.

Mike Neale, managing director at real estate firm NAI Harcourts, said his firm was involved in getting all the building two tenants aboard.

“We actually had tenants that missed out. That bodes well for the CBD.”

Neale said tenants were now able to start doing “integrated” fit outs, working with Foster to prepare their spaces as the building work was completed.

He expected them to actually start shifting in before Christmas and into the new year on a progressive basis.

The second building’s opening will follow that of a carpark building in April and staff moving into the site’s award-winning Rabobank building in late 2021.