Monster Westhaven office floor getting $1.5m makeover

How the office layout will look after the $1.5 million refit.

A $1.5 million refurbishment one of the country's biggest office floors has begun.

At just over half the size of a standard 7000sq m rugby field, each floor at Westhaven's 100 Beaumont St by the Southern Motorway's Fanshawe St offramp is almost 4000sq m, capable of providing a single workspace for more than 300 people.

Opus International is refitting its third level inside the monster office block, below where Bauer Media Group (formerly ACP NZ) was once headquartered before shifting to the City Works Depot. Insurance business Crombie Lockwood now occupies the space Bauer left.

Mark Burke-Damaschke, Opus Architecture's national manager, said the biggest challenge was refitting the floor while all employees remained.

The landlord is understood to be contributing about $400,000.

John Coldicutt, a director of Prism Properties, which owns the building, described the block as well ahead of its time and said it had been a struggle to build, both financially and from a planning point of view.

"Opus is a very good tenant, there for nine years and they renewed and as part of that, [we] contributed to their upgrade," Coldicutt said.

Prism's directors are John and Helen Coldicutt and Mary-louise and Paul Shaw, who Coldicutt said were Kiwis now living in Australia.

QV lists the concrete-walled building with a steel roof and 14,476sq m of lettable office space as being worth $38 million: an $11 million, 3850sq m site with $27 million worth of improvements.

Burke-Damaschke said the building went up in 1997 and ACP was the original tenant.

"Level two was originally car parking and converted to offices when Opus moved in in 2002. Our tenancy runs to 2022. We have 290, with an allowance of 300 post-refurbishment due to the growth of business and additional staff to operate out of our Takapuna and Manukau premises," he said.

"Opus occupies over 20,000sq m of commercial space around the country and is currently carrying out fitout of around 4500sq m as part of the seismic upgrade to the Majestic Centre in Wellington and designing a new 6000sq m commercial building on Moorhouse Ave in Christchurch of which Opus will occupy about 4500sq m."

John Dakin, chief executive of Goodman Property Trust, said the Beaumont St block appeared to have the biggest floor plates in New Zealand.

"I don't know of any bigger," he said.

Culum Manson, of Mansons TCLM, said the Telecom HQ which his family's firm built in Victoria St West had New Zealand's biggest floorplates, at 5100sq m each.

But he acknowledged that was across four buildings and although they had a central atrium joining them, they were not in one single building as at Beaumont St.

Also, TVNZ had sublet the Chorus building, meaning more than one tenant in that campus-style complex now, Manson said.

Mansons' new 20,000sq m Graham St block just off Victoria St had 3100sq m floors, he said.

Plus-size premises

100 Beaumont St: Just under 4000sq m
Telecom, Victoria St West: 5100sq m floors but over four buildings
New 20,000sq m Graham St block: 3100sq m floors

Sources: Opus, Mansons TCLM