Two day pub crawl ends happily

The 720-tonne hotel will be moved back to its original site early next year. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Auckland's 125-year-old Birdcage hotel reached new lodgings last night after contractors took two days to slide the 720-tonne building 44.3m from its original site.

The move, parallel to Franklin Rd using hydraulic rams to push the hotel along "runway" beams, was almost noiseless apart from the popping of the cork of a champagne bottle placed between the two-storey brick building and a steel beam positioned at the end of its journey.

It was that sound, accompanied by the grinding of glass, which signalled to workers and onlookers that their mission had been accomplished shortly before 6pm.

The workers went to another watering hole to celebrate the feat; the Birdcage was stripped of its bar and other 19th-century fittings for the move.

It will remain on the four concrete runner beams for four to six months while Transport Agency contractors dig a tunnel under its original site as part of a $406 million Victoria Park motorway upgrade project.

Then it will be returned in a reverse of this week's operation, to sit above the new tunnel's southern entrance awaiting restoration as the backdrop to a new plaza and pedestrian connection to Victoria Park Market.

Although the agency hoped to complete the move in one day, engineers were keen not to undo five months of strengthening work by hastening the old building at the risk of damaging its brickwork.

"We did take longer than we thought we were going to, but it's all in once piece and it's all been done very smooth and controlled - there's absolutely no damage," said project engineer Bryce Irving afterwards.

Although he was confident the hotel would not have ended up as a pile of rubble, hydraulic pressures at 14 jack points had to be constantly monitored and adjusted to prevent the smallest degree of ground settlement cracking the building.