In the wake of major flooding and land slips, an extra $20 million was added to Auckland Council's budget for disaster spending.
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Cash-strapped Auckland Council’s multimillion-dollar five-building retreat is under way, with commercial agents appointed to sub-lease the many floors from the CBD to Albany which council workers now won’t use.
Sam Gallaugher, Paul Dyson and Matt Lamb of Colliers announced today they had been chosen to do the work.
They will try to find tenants to lease floorspace the council doesn’t need, as it looks for ways to save nearly $300 million.
Even some of its furniture and fittings are up for grabs, as well as a floor in a North Shore building it has not even yet shifted into.
Council-owned furniture might go cheap too: “There are significant financial benefits for future tenants moving into an existing building given the rising costs of office fit-out,” the Colliers agents said.
The cost-cutting budget - which has been called the council’s most important in 10 years - is under Mayor Wayne Brown, with job cuts to address a $295m hole and Brown wanting to sell Auckland Airport shares.
The council has spotted potential savings by taking a razor to its rent bill, decamping from floors within its own inner-city headquarters, as well as four other blocks where it pays commercial landlords millions in rent.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is on a cost-cutting mission. Photo / Michael Craig
But the space-saving slash also comes at a time many other businesses have staff working from home and commercial vacancies in some parts of the city are rising.
A council document leaked to the Herald stated rationalising corporate premises from the CBD to Albany means it wants to sublet:
1. Levels six, seven and eight of the 31-level Auckland House, 135 Albert St. Each floor is 1205sq m so it wants to quit about a third of a hectare all up. Car parking to be confirmed. The only building in this list of five that is council-owned. A decade ago, it spent $157m fixing leaks and refurbishing floors, slammed at the time by Cameron Brewer as “pure madness”;
2. Levels six and seven of the offices at 167 Victoria St West, a total of 2040sq m plus eight car parks in leased premises on the corner of Nelson St just up from Fanshawe St;
3. Level five of the ex-Vodafone HQ, 20 Viaduct Harbour Ave, the curved glass building on Viaduct Harbour Holdings’ leasehold land at the Fanshawe St/Halsey St corner across from Fonterra’s HQ, and car parks to be confirmed in what is now Auckland Transport’s headquarters, another leased building;
4. The ground floor and level one, 82 Wyndham St at the Nelson St corner, 46 car parks, also a leased building owned by NZX-listed Argosy Property;
5. Level five of Albany’s 6-8 Munroe Lane, car parks to be confirmed, a six-level building owned by NZX-listed Asset Plus headed by Mark Francis, with the project not due to be finished till this winter but where hundreds of council staff will eventually work.
Gallaugher is confident Colliers can take the floors off the council’s hands.
“There is ongoing demand for high-quality office space as businesses strive to provide attractive working environments for their team members and these particular locations should generate strong interest among prospective tenants,” he said today.
