Metlifecare Greenwich Gardens, Stage 1, 4 & 5

Accommodation / Residential, Multi-dwelling Units

Metlifecare Greenwich Gardens, Stage 1, 4 & 5

Construction

Project
Accommodation /
Residential
Multi-dwelling Units

Location
5 Greenwich Way,
Unsworth Heights

Client
Metlifecare

Value
$75 Million

Period
29 months

Consultants
Architects /
Edes Ltd

Structural /
Mott MacDonald

Located at Unsworth Heights, on Auckland’s North Shore, the new Greenwich Gardens development is envisaged by Metlifecare as a ‘next generation’ retirement village, offering the advantages of village living while still maintaining links to the local community. It also sets new standards in the retirement village industry for sustainability, with the early stages achieving 6 Homestar Built certification.

Haydn & Rollett was engaged by Metlifecare to build 27 residential-style villas at Greenwich, and to design-manage and build the next stage, a multi-level apartment complex featuring standard and serviced apartments, as well as a number of high-grade care suites. Under tight deadline pressure, the complex was delivered last winter and officially opened by former PM John Key in September, although it’s anticipated that more apartments will be built.

The villa phase of the development threw up some complications around infrastructure, with all of the services needing to be laid under the site’s main access. Haydn & Rollett’s approach was to tackle the deep drainage first, before building the access road and the villas. At the end, access was severed while the shallow services were installed.

To meet the sustainability goals of the client, the villas were all built with 150-millimetre thick timber walls to accommodate additional insulation. As well, all of the building site waste was recycled off site, and water-heating solar panels were installed.

The fast-tracking of the apartment building put the acid on Haydn & Rollett to be highly organised, creative, and in close communication with all parties. With building getting under way before the design was finalised, the contractor had to fast-track the signing of subbies and proceed on the contract ‘in chunks’, negotiating early elements of the programme as they were tackled. In order to meet the deadline, Haydn & Rollett effectively ran the ‘front of the job’ on the client’s behalf, a situation requiring mutual trust and respect.

While the apartments themselves proved straightforward, the hillside site required a great deal of time-consuming but vital prep work, including building four storeys worth of retaining walls.

In the end, Haydn & Rollett was able to hand over a high quality product in good time, an achievement that among other things reflects its historically strong and trusting partnership with Metlifecare.