BNZ says Wgtn office will be closed for months, Fletcher hired for remediation work

Thursday 17th November 2016

Bank of New Zealand expects it will be months as opposed to weeks before it re-opens its Wellington office owned by CentrePort, who has hired Fletcher Building for the remediation job.

The lender's Harbour Quays building adjacent to Wellington's port was damaged in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake near Kaikoura, and the bank now expects it will be longer before it can re-open it to staff. The Wellington office housed the bulk of BNZ's call-centre operations, and it's previously warned customers could face delays because of that.

"Today, we indicated to our people that it is likely to be some months before we are back in, rather than the weeks we first thought, and we can’t give definite dates today as we are still working closely with the landlord on the remediation plan and sign-off process," a spokesman said in an emailed statement.

BNZ's building had been cleared as structurally sound by CentrePort on Tuesday, having undertaken a series of upgrades in the wake of the 2013 Seddon quakes that closed the office.

CentrePort's land showed signs of liquefaction after the quake and the government today kicked off an investigation into the performance of buildings, including Statistics House, which is also on the port's land and has come under close scrutiny over the damage it sustained.

BNZ said CentrePort has appointed Fletcher Building to oversee the remediation programme. Fletcher completed the BNZ building, which was designed by Jasmax and engineered by Beca in 2009. The same consortium designed, engineered and built Statistics House, which was completed in 2005.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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