Wanganui's Pak 'N Save supermarket is expected to open next April.
It was originally scheduled to be serving customers by now, but about March the completion target was moved to next February.
About six weeks was lost earlier this year as hard substrata forced a review of the design to make the
foundations shallower.
Pak 'N Save owner/operator Nigel Jones said yesterday due to building challenges, a late April opening was expected, unless circumstances changed in the next couple of months. Once construction had been finished, six weeks were needed to install fittings and bring in stock.
No date had been set yet for an official opening, Mr Jones said.
The 6300 sq m supermarket and associated fuel outlet is being built by Palmerston-North based McMillan & Lockwood. Project manager Paul Booth attributed the revised completion date to the complexities of the job and the nature of the construction industry.
Issues the industry faced included weather delaying concrete pours on the scheduled day, then having to join the queue, and waiting for large amounts of material to be delivered.
"The industry people aren't standing around waiting for the work. Everybody's busy."
The balance of the supermarket's basement had been excavated and a machine was coming down from Auckland to test the bearing capacity of the ground, Mr Booth said.
Sheet piling, where steel sheets are driven vertically into the ground by a vibro hammer, had been completed for the supermarket, while it was yet to be done for the fuel outlet.
Pak 'N Save will replace Write Price and an upmarket New World will open where Write Price is now.
