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January, 2021 After three years of planning and nearly a year of deconstruction andreconstruction, work on the OConnells building in central Queenstown is starting to sprint to the finish-line. The steelwork for the mountain range-shaped canopies wrapping around its Camp and Beach Street frontages is starting to appear, while the grey acoustic panels around its exterior will soon start coming down. Project manager Bruce Halligan, of Naylor Love, says about 65 people are working on the building, and that number will increase to more than 100 as work ramps up over the next few months. In about a month, the tower crane sitting in the middle of the building will be removed piece by piece, over two nights, by a 300-tonne mobile crane brought in especially for the job, Halligan says. He estimates two-thirds of the original building remains basically, its foundations and skeleton but it will be unrecognisable inside and out. The Skyline Enterprises-owned shopping centre will have a revamped food hall on the ground floor, retail space on the first floor, and office space on the top two floors. The companys property manager, Alastair Clifford, says Covids been a double-edged sword for the project. In terms of the building work, the timings meant a minimal impact on the local community, but theres a flip-side in terms of finding tenants. The redevelopments on schedule for completion in mid-August, but its reopening originally forecast for November is highly likely to be delayed, Clifford says. With Covid-19 continuing to impact the investment decisions of potential tenants, marketing of the new space wont fully recommence until theres greater certainty, and the company would prefer the food hall and retail floors to be fully tenanted first. Because many of the buildings future visitors will be overseas tourists, Skyline and its consultants are thinking hard about the impact of living with Covid on their personal habits and expectations, and how best to translate that into the buildings final details, he says. Source: Mountain Scene
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