Britomart owner Cooper and Company has completed a $30 million restoration and upgrade of Auckland’s former Chief Post Office, which the NZ Super Fund will shift into next year.
Executive chairman Peter Cooper said the restoration had honoured the past.
The 1912 building’s ground floor is the Waitematā Station, but three levels of offices above the public concourse will soon be the Super Fund’s new headquarters.
Around March, the Super Fund will leave Jarden House across Te Komititanga Square for the upgraded floors.
Link Alliance and Auckland Light Rail had been tenants but the City Rail Link is nearing completion and last January, the coalition Government scrapped light rail.
This morning, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei blessed the building.
Cheshire Architects worked with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga to design the Chief Post Office (CPO) refurbishment.
The builders were Bracewell Construction, working on the 5500sq m of office space.
A new element has been created: a glass-roofed atrium in the former lightwell at the centre of the building.
That area is now a social gathering space. The atrium’s new floor is punctuated by the century-old stained-glass domes that allow light into the train station below.
New entry arches have replaced chromed doors that were introduced in the early 2000s.
A new 14m chandelier in the stairwell was designed by Cheshire Architects and Monmouth Glass. That features almost 50 petal-shaped bulbs.
The builders removed the dropped ceilings from the early 2000s to reveal the heritage columns and cornices.
Air-conditioning and other services have been moved to allow better appreciation of original features, including restored steel-framed windows.
The CPO Building is targeting a 6 Green Star rating from the NZ Green Building Council.
That would make it the first heritage building in New Zealand to receive that rating, only given after the building is occupied.
It is also targeting a gold rating from the International WELL Building Institute.
Matthew Cockram, Cooper and Company chief executive, said the CPO would contribute to the evolution of the downtown waterfront area.
This week, the Herald reported the Super Fund generated returns of nearly 12% over the past year, beating its benchmarks and the wider market and seeing the fund grow to $85 billion.
Set up in 2001 by Sir Michael Cullen, the fund is intended to partly pay for the ballooning future pension costs from New Zealand’s ageing population.
Chief executive Jo Townsend said that despite the fund being expected to start contributing funds to the Crown from 2028, it still had a long-term investment outlook.
“By 2028, we’re going to be a $100 billion fund. Paying $32m then is really easy to make available,” she said on Monday.
In 2022, the fund said it had negotiated a lease with Cooper and Company for space in the CPO.
Paula Steed, strategy and shared services general manager, said then: “By 2026 our current office space will become too small for what we will need.”
About 200 people worked at the business in 2022 but that was set to grow to about 300 employees.
“With a larger team, we need a larger space. We were attracted to the Chief Post Office building, which is currently being refurbished, as we will be able to have more of the team on the same floor.”
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.