Client: Willis Bond
Project Type: Retail/Office
Project Timeframe: 2011 - 2013
Architects: Athfield Architects
The 15-floor office tower has been fully upgraded to create 9900 square metres of office space and to make best use of 1900 square metres of retail space on a prime retail spot between Lambton Quay and Featherston Street.
Willis Bond purchased the building, formerly the ANZ Bank’s New Zealand headquarters, in 2010. The interiors were ripped out floor by floor, lifts upgraded and structures strengthened. In the busy downtown area, noise, dust and health and safety, including heavy machinery access to the site, had to be carefully managed.
As the work took place, LT McGuinness liaised closely with tenants, and with the council over issues such as the trolley bus wires that run along Lambton Quay. Seismic strengthening has taken the building to more than 100% of the New Building Standard.
Ten retailers now occupy the ground floor which previously had just the ANZ as tenant. A public toilet that sat on the prominent southern ‘bullnose’ corner has been shifted. The glass bullnose is now the showpiece of boutique coffee store Nespresso.
Offices in the tower are fully tenanted by clients including accountants Grant Thornton, which secured naming rights for the building, the Environmental Protection Authority, Optimation, Farmers’ Mutual Group, ANZ, the New Zealand Institute of Educational Research, Maven, the Environmental Protection Authority, GHD Ltd and Jasmax.
