The construction of a new shopping mall at Westgate - part of the DNZ Property Fund Ltd’s portfolio - began in April and will feature around 90 specialty stores, a Farmers department store and Countdown supermarket. Dominion Constructors, sub-contractors to Fletcher Construction, awarded the concrete supply for the project to Firth who has been using several of its Auckland plants to keep the concrete flowing.
“We won the contract for this project back at the beginning of the year,” explains Robin Martin, Area Operations Manager (Auckland) for Firth. “We have worked with Dominion for many years so we know them well and they know us.”
The tight construction schedule for the project has meant long hours for the Firth teams in the Henderson and Albany plants with a lot of concrete being delivered in just a few months. “It’s going really well and we are managing to supply what we promised - but it's been a bit of a juggle!" adds Robin.
With large Post Tensioned (PT) slabs being poured on a weekly basis by Dominion and start times of 2am, being able to deliver between 300 and 430m3 of concrete by 6am and then up to a further 200m3 in the day to other parts of the site has kept Robin and his plant managers at Henderson and Albany on their toes. “There is a lot of coordination required to keep the trucks arriving on site, six days a week, as we must take into account our regular customers plus keep the driving hours of our guys in hand.”
Robin explains that, after the first few weeks, they had found a winning plan to ensure everyone is kept happy. “Now we have the schedules sorted we just follow the plan because it works.”
“Construction is going quite well actually,” says Deon Smit, Project Manager for Dominion Constructors. “We are really impressed with Firth and the service they are giving us. The weather hasn't been the best but we are still trying to complete all concrete pours by Christmas. There is a lot of concrete going into this for the PT floors for the carpark and also the slabs for the stores. Firth is doing a great job. We are very happy with their service.”
“We are fortunate that we can call on plants from across Auckland,” adds Robin. “Our network means we can keep everyone happy and shuffle things around if we need to – we have that ability.”
Westgate’s new mall is scheduled to be opened in October 2015.