Telecom shifting thousands into $280m HQ

Telecom's move into its newly finished headquarters is New Zealand's biggest corporate relocation. Photo / Greg Bowker

New Zealand's largest corporate relocation has begun as Telecom shifts 2650 staff into its new $280 million international headquarters in Auckland.

Jim Robb, head of corporate property, said 150 people were being moved every two days, leaving five sites and 10 leases around Auckland for Telecom Place, the 2.8ha four-building campus spanning Victoria St West, Dock St and Hardinge St.

Only Auckland Council's move of 1000 staff between various territorial authority buildings comes close.

Monday marked the start of the telco's 12-year lease from building owner and developer Mansons TCLM.

Telecom signed nine leases on the four Manson buildings with two rights of renewal, each of six years, taking it through to 2030. Chorus will not move in but some Telecom Wholesale and Gen-i staff have already shifted.

Robb said the four-building move was no reflection of shrinking real estate aspirations.

"We're not planning to be smaller. We're planning on being future-proofed. But since we signed up, the industry has changed with structural change and separation. We're looking to be a bigger player in the New Zealand market," Robb said.

Mojo Coffee, Cafe Melba, Subway, a sushi bar and a Westpac ATM will operate from the campus development, which Robb likened to a mini-village.

Beneath an atrium linking the four colour-coded buildings is a 300-seat lecture theatre where quarterly Telecom results will be announced, eliminating the need to hire hotel meeting spaces.

Off the public atrium, an area will soon be fitted out to showcase an office and home of the future, displaying Gen-i equipment. A series of smart meeting rooms are also off the foyer with TelePresence plasma screens displaying video conferencing.

Robb said staff in the new building had no desk phones.

"Everyone has a soft phone to their PC and wireless internal data. Their phones link through their laptop and they can answer via a headset or their cellphones," Robb said.

"This will be the only corporate in New Zealand that's 100 per cent wireless with follow-me printer technology, badge activated, so staff can work from anywhere in the building and be connected to the nearest printer."

Chief executive Paul Reynolds will move into the site's northern building overlooking Vodafone on Fanshawe St.

Telecom has opened a concept shop on the Victoria/Hardinge St corner.

John Walsh, editor of Architecture New Zealand, said he was impressed with the building interior but he questioned its overall value to the civic landscape and wondered how people would view it.

"This is a very big building, particularly if you look down on it from the Ponsonby ridge. Like Sovereign [House], it's an inside building.

"With this new wave of corporate buildings, all the effort goes into the interior and there are questions of what these buildings give back to the urban environment," Walsh said.

But Robb said the large foyer and the retail outlets were open to the public and he hoped Aucklanders would visit. He said the building had been awarded stars from the Green Building Council for environmental aspects.

TELECOM PLACE

Telco's new HQ:
* 28,900sq m of offices
* Four buildings, 28 floors
* 168 toilets flushed with rainwater
* 120,000 litre rainwater tanks
* Can accommodate 2700 people
* Designed by Architectus
* Fit-out by Warren & Mahoney