Office buildings dominate city construction

Stacy Squires

CONSTRUCTION: Tait's Arjen Maarleveld checking progress at the new Tait Campus in May. Office buildings make up a third of new projects.

As the earthquake rebuild pushes on, a surge of new Christchurch office buildings is becoming a dominant feature in the city's construction landscape.

Canterbury's spending on non-residential construction in the first quarter of the year was 16 per cent up on the previous three months, according to Statistics New Zealand.

With the exception of a handful of projects near Christchurch's City Mall, most office buildings under construction in the city are either just west of the river in the central city, or on Victoria St, Lincoln Rd or Moorhouse Ave.

And there is a lot more construction ahead. Major projects announced for Christchurch in the past few weeks include the five-storey new PricewaterhouseCoopers office building planned for 56 to 64 Cashel St, a five-storey building at 32 Oxford Tce which will be the first for the Health Precinct and a new Music Centre to face Armagh St just west of New Regent St forming part of the Performing Arts precinct.

The city's rebuild has helped make office construction the busiest non-residential construction sector nationally.

A total of $1.3 billion was spent on non-residential construction in New Zealand from January to March, a figure which includes both commercial and public buildings.

Office buildings made up almost a third of the work underway, followed by educational and then industrial buildings.

Inside the region, a total of $352 million was spent, which was 16 per cent up on the $305m spent in the first three months of 2013.

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Office buildings dominate city construction