Construction to begin on $105m North Campus building after Covid delays By Justin Hu (he/him)
The A1 building project has been delayed by 18 months partially due to uncertainty around revenue from international students. Major construction will begin on a new $105m building project at AUT’s North Campus after it had been put on hold due to funding uncertainty. AUT planners say the new four-storey ‘A1’ building will finally provide students on the North Campus with study spaces and classrooms that are comparable to the City and South Campuses. They say the building is expected to open to students in semester one 2024. The university’s design and projects director Greg Posa told Debate that A1
would complete a trifecta of new building projects across AUT’s three campuses. He said the project has been delayed for 18 months as a result of uncertainty around international student revenue and construction supply chain issues. “If you know the North Campus; it's tired, old, and parts are in disrepair. The A1 building will bring a new life to that campus,” he said. In a prior life, the North Campus had been a teacher training college before being retrofitted to function as part of
a polytechnic in 1985, and would later become a university when AUT gained university status in 2000. Posa said the new building would create a “heart” on the campus in the same way the WG and MH buildings have at AUT’s City and South Campuses. He said students and staff would be quick to notice the changes with large open-plan social spaces. “A heart means a sort of flash building that would link into other buildings and create areas that would be a magnet to bring students on campus.” When completed, the 6,000 square metre building will connect to the existing fourstorey AF building at each level, as well as the existing library. It will accommodate around 2,000 students and over 200 staff.
