With the ‘roads of national significance’ making headlines lately, the Victoria Park Tunnel – road 1/7 – was a big winner at the 2012 Hirepool Construction Awards.
The project was described by judges as “outstanding in every respect”, and was developed for the NZTA by an alliance comprising Fletcher Construction, Beca, Higgins and Parsons Brinkerhof. It won category four, for projects exceeding $20 million, with a total cost of $340 million.
The project comprised a 40-metre cut and cover tunnel adjacent to the Victoria Park viaduct, reconfiguring the viaduct to carry four southbound lanes, widen the St Mary’s Bay motorway to provide five lanes in each direction plus a city bound bus lane.
The bulk of the major construction was completed by September 2011 – three months ahead of schedule, in time for the Rugby World Cup.
Being located in the Auckland CBD the project was subject to stringent environmental controls that included noise mitigation, protected trees, heritage and archaeological sites and involved moving the historic Birdcage Hotel and then returning it, in one piece, once construction of the tunnel was complete.
The awards organiser, NZCF executive officer Malcolm Abernathy says: “Despite the many challenges it presented, everything about the project impressed the judges.”
This year’s Construction Awards, which recognise excellence in civil construction projects carried out by New Zealand companies at home or abroad, attracted a record 29 entries across four categories with budgets ranging from up to $500,000 to over $ 20 million.
The other winners were Category One – Civil Construction (Horrell Contracting Ltd) for the Project Manassen Residential Dwelling site works in Queenstown; Category Two – Brian Perry Civil, for the Manapouri Lake control structure repairs; Category Three – Downer NZ Limited, for Cleddau River flood protection in Milford Sound.
“All the projects demonstrated outstanding technical and environmental planning and innovative approaches that provided identifiable and long-lasting benefits to the clients, the public and the environment,” says Abernathy.
Hirepool chief executive, Mark Powell described the four category winners and all finalists “as representing the very best of what those involved in our key construction, civil engineering and general contracting industries do on a regular basis.”
“We congratulate all of them as they play such a vital role in providing and maintaining the infrastructure of public services so vital for a modern, developed economy like ours, if it is to compete efficiently in world markets today.”
