Aotea Square redevelopment

Mayor of Auckland city Hon. John Banks at Aotea Square.

Visit: Mayor of Auckland city Hon. John Banks recently visited the Aotea Square development. Mr. Banks says he is impressed with the amount of work completed to date, as well as the amount of real Kiwi ingenuity being used throughout the project.

From City Scene, published on 18 October, 2009.

The Aotea Square redevelopment and repair of the Civic car park roof officially marked the halfway point in construction this month.

"With 12 months now to go, this massive project is progressing well and we are looking forward to the finished results," says Councillor Greg Moyle, chairperson of the Arts, Culture and Recreation Committee.

While the development has caused some inconvenience for users, Mr Moyle says great efforts have been undertaken to ensure disruption is kept to a minimum.

Once complete, Aotea Square will create a lively arts, culture and entertainment hub for all Aucklanders and visitors to enjoy. The catalyst for this redevelopment was the discovery of damage to Civic car park underneath the square.

To find out more about this council project, including designs and best access routes around the square, visit Aotea Square redevelopment online or phone Auckland City Council.

Civic car park still open

During construction, the popular Civic car park has been kept open, which has eliminated the need to build a temporary car park.

"We actually have more car park spaces available now than before construction work started last year," says Mr Moyle.

For information about access to the Civic car park, please visit Aotea Square redevelopment or ph Auckland City Council.

Innovation drives construction

Several new innovations, have been applied during this project. They include:

a specially developed machine for hydraulically jacking the old roof to replace the worn out bearings
a waterproofing membrane system with a memory material which can re-form to its original size if stretched.
an electronic leak detection system that is extremely accurate in detecting damage and leaks to the waterproofing membrane both during construction and on completion of the work. This reduces construction time and costs.
concrete mix specially designed for this project. It is a premium concrete with low shrinkage, constantly monitored through a quality assurance system to ensure the performance of the new roof complies with the high specification required.
the use of carbon fibre to reinforce existing concrete beams.

Project achievements

In the past year, the project team has:

laid 500 tonnes of steel into the new roof of the Civic car park
poured 2000 cubic metres of concrete
worked in excess of 200,000 hours.