Hewletts Road Bulk Storage
Hewletts Road Bulk Storage
Project
Industrial
Location
124 Hewletts Road,
Mt Maunganui
Client
Property for Industry
Value
$15.5 Million
Period
8 Months
Consultants
Architects /
Woodhams Meikle Zhan
Structural /
MSC Consulting
This 13,000m2 bulk storage facility was the final in a series of four similar structures tackled by Haydn & Rollett for a single client at the same greenfields Mt Maunganui site. For the contractor, it was definitely a case of saving the best until last.
The seven hectare property at 124 Hewletts Rd was formerly home to a busy plywood mill, and during the previous two builds the main subcontractors, HEB Construction, had struck large quantities of reject timber buried in the ground. Before building could commence on the penultimate warehouse, as much as 20,000m3 of earth had to be trucked away. By contrast, only 3000m3 was removed from this final building site.
Ground conditions aside, the standout feature of this project was scale. Designed for the bulk storage of products such as grain and fertiliser, the six sheds were designed to be extremely robust, including half-a-metre thick walls.
With each over-dimensioned unit weighing more than 30 tonnes, the usual approach of trucking in precast panels wasn’t an option. Instead, a specialist subcontractor was engaged to pour on site, working around sometimes inclement weather to build as many as a dozen panels per week. A 250 tonne crawler crane was used to move the large precast elements around the site.
With the other warehouses on the wider site already in commercial use, some juggling was required to maintain access for everyone while also running in services such as power, stormwater and sewerage. Balancing the ledger, Haydn & Rollett’s longstanding and productive relationship with the subcontractors and client proved helpful, as did the lessons absorbed on the earlier three builds. A case of lucky last, indeed.