Remuera’s $120 million six-level award-winning St Marks apartments are being fixed after water penetrated layers in the roof above its top floors and the roof of a lower-level podium.
“I am beyond disappointed,” said breast surgeon turned developer John Harman of defects in the building which his company developed and where he owns commercial units.
Water had not come into the apartments but there were defects in the roof membrane and the podium roof, Harman said.
Dominion Constructors built the project and Harman said that business had returned for repairs.
The white glazed residential and commercial building at 10 St Marks Rd off Remuera Rd is near the Southern Motorway.
Scaffolding is now being erected for the roof repairs following the podium fix in the past few months, Harman said.
Brett Russell of Dominion Constructors confirmed his business was fixing the buildings.
“It’s all under control and all parties worked together to get a solution, along with subcontractors and suppliers so a good result,” Russell said.
The St Marks apartments were only finished in 2018 so they are seven years old.
In 2019, the project won the Property Council’s best in category multi-unit housing award after Martin Cooper’s Cooper and Associates entered it.
Harman said water penetrated the roof membrane above the units as well as the podium roof, which resulted in water entering the car park.
Lawyer Steve Woodfield is the chairman of the owners’ committee of one of two St Marks’ bodies corporate.
“This is largely a good news story,” he said, referring to the fact that water did not come into any of the luxury apartments.
“Dominion Constructors and its suppliers are responding to requested building maintenance and upgrades. Parts of the building are currently being wrapped to allow continuous workflow in dry conditions,” Woodfield said.
Dominion built the project for Harman’s St Marks Development [now called SMD1] between 2016 and 2018.
Dominion referred to St Marks as a $56m contract but Harman said the property had a full valuation of $120m for land and buildings.
The penthouse was reported by the Herald in 2021 to have sold for $6m-plus.
Nick Gaites, an engineer and a director of Reveal Building Consultants, wrote a report in 2022 describing defects on the upper-level main roofs above the two blocks.
Those blocks are connected with a lower-level podium in the middle.
“This letter identifies the responsibilities, acts and omissions of the main contractor for the construction of St Marks – Dominion Constructors – at high level,” Gaites wrote.
One material was swapped for another inferior material on the roofs: instead of a high-performance board, polystyrene had been substituted.
The way materials were fixed on those rooftops was also not as robust as it should have been, either.
Nuratherm board was substituted for an expanded polystyrene base layer, Gaites wrote.
Screw fixings were also substituted for glue, he noted.
Because there was a significant deviation away from the product manufacturers’ specification, the roof probably did not comply with the Building Code, Gaites wrote.
“Because of the code breaches caused by the substitutions, defects and water ingress to the roofs, corrective building work is required,” Gaites wrote.
Harman said twisted internal gutters were discovered during a routine roof inspection in 2022.
Then the wider extent of the issues was revealed when experts were contracted to identify what had gone wrong.
Harman said he had spent $500,000 on legal advice and found the situation extremely upsetting.
“It was my first major development. There has been criticism of me as a developer. But the standard of construction of the podium and roof was poor.”
In 2016, Harman told the Herald he planned to have the project built on his site pf the St Marks Breast Centre, where he practised for many years.
Buyers paying deposits then were mainly aged in their 50s, whose children have left home, and who were looking to downsize and move into a top-quality apartment.
A two-level basement carpark was developed.
Apartments pre-sold from $680,000 to $6m+ and one buyer joined two apartments, reducing the overall number of places, Harman said.
He performed the first breast reconstruction surgery in New Zealand and set up the country’s first breast clinic.
He said he only became a luxury apartment developer after a spa pool accident left him unable to operate.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.