Mid-year reopening for Napier's Tiffen Park parking building

Napier's Tiffen Park parking building, closed and under wraps for maintenance work. Photo / Doug Laing

A city council parking building closed since the start of March for maintenance is expected to be closed for more than three months.

The Napier City Council has confirmed work on the two-level Tiffen Park building, off Tennyson St, with 121 spaces for mainly casual parking next to the Municipal Theatre, won't be completed until about mid-June.

The bottom deck has been wrapped in plastic since the start of last week to prevent spray drift during paint removal and repainting.

When announcing the closure via its Facebook page on March 2, the council said the upper, open floor was being closed until mid-May "while we give it a thorough makeover".

There was some jack-hammer work on the top deck in March, and soda-blasting, last week, both loudly heard across the inner-city and the surrounding hill suburb during the daytime, but the council insists there is no structural or restrengthening work, and that the building meets the rating of 100 per cent according to National Building Standards.

The work includes the breaking-out of concrete in the joints on the top level, to replace existing coating with a flexible and waterproof jointing system, which the council says allows for joints to move without causing cracking as buildings heat and cool.

Most of the noise across the city was that of ultra-high pressure blasting to remove the concrete out of the joints before the new jointing system is added.

The same blaster is also being used to remove paint on the lower level before it can be repainted.

The building was opened in 2000, has 58 spaces on the covered ground level, with an average weekly occupancy of 62 per cent, and 63 on the uncovered top deck, popular for its $5 all-day parking and with average weekly occupancy of 86 per cent, the council says.

It says below 50 per cent would be under-utilisation, and over 85 per cent is considered over-utilisation.