The award-winning refurbished Ōtorohanga District Council offices.
Ōtorohanga District Council’s refurbished and re-vamped council building has won silver at the New Zealand Commercial Project Awards.
Council chief advisor Ross McNeil said it was the council’s project partner Unispace that suggested the entry in the awards, run by the Registered Master Builders Association.
He said the reason the council embarked on the $2.2 million project was to make the offices a more flexible and connected workspace with spaces designed to allow greater community use.
“In the event Ōtorohanga District Council didn’t exist by virtue of some government process in the future, there might be a much smaller service centre. The building was designed in a way that allowed for that future flexibility,” Ross said.
“The awards were just a nice kind of add-on.”
Unispace would have put the nomination forward on the council’s behalf on the understanding the ŌDC would have been in with a reasonable shot of winning something.
“We were pleased with the work they had done.”
Council staff identified several firms operating in the commercial office build and refurbish space, and visited a number of office locations before committing. They included Waipa District Council, Waikato Regional Council, Waikato District council, and HEB construction in Auckland.
“We selected Unispace on the strength of a two-stage process, one being the design and then that would trigger a decision point – did we want to proceed with construction or not?
“Having a company that offered the design and build was attractive. Being a small organisation, we did not have the internal capacity to have done any of the design work.”
A fixed price was one of the most compelling elements of the selection process, Ross said.
The project was originally flagged at $1.1 million but this doubled after an inspection of the building.
All of the electrical cables and wiring was end of life and had to be completely replaced. The air conditioning was a combination of individual heat pump units and most of those were end of life, as well as the central air conditioning system that operated in part of the building. The ceiling system was also end of life. Adding those costs exceeded the balance of the original budget.
When the building was stripped, there were some structural elements that needed to be attended to, Ross said.
“We’ve been on a journey with staff, even before Unipace, we started a conversation with staff around the reason we needed the sorts of things we wanted, to address outcomes we wanted to achieve.
“One of the commitments we made to staff was a workspace for everyone,” Ross said.
Not just the future proofing and making room for the new staff, which were signalled in the long-tern plan – there was also a commitment that there was enough space for all staff to have their own desk.
Which, he said, was quite different from office space environments where staff worked from home and had hot desking – sharing desks at the office.
“That took any angst and concern about that away,” he said.
“We still have a flexible work policy.”
Staff had the option of working from home, but in the interests of collegiality and staying connected, staff were required to work in the office a minimum of two days a week.
The New Zealand Commercial Project Awards celebrate the teams delivering quality commercial construction projects nationwide. Awards from the Registered Master Builders Association are presented to competition entries throughout New Zealand.
