Waikato Business News | September, 2024 by Cambridge News, King Country News, Te Awamutu News & Waikato Business News

Our stunning bridge

The opening of Hamilton’s sixth bridge fell on the day of Kīngi Tuheitia’s passing, Roy Pilott reports.

As you know, things have changed – but the plan was set, and it’s left for us to carry on.”

Among the many words said from the podium on a day of “incredible sadness” at news of the death of Kingi Tuheitia, those, from the representative of the Whare Ariki - the Māori King’s Royal House - Tame Pokaia - may have best summed up Tainui’s – and the late king’s - unwavering commitment to the region’s development.

Earlier it was a gathering of the grieving for the formal opening and naming of the new bridge over the Waikato River soon after dawn on Friday.

Opening the proceedings, Eric Pene (Ngāti Wairere) acknowledged the king’s passing and politely asked media not to zoom in too closely on faces of those grievers.

Simeon Brown looked on as the name of the bridge – Te Ara Pekapeka – was unveiled amid tears. Such was the timing of his passing, the plaque records the bridge was opened by Kīngi Tūheitia. The night before, Hamilton endured torrential rain and a violent thunderstorm. At the same time, Tuheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII’s whanau farewelled the Huntly born king who had, days earlier, celebrated the 18th anniversary of his coronation at Turangawaewae.

sixth Hamilton

bridge over the river is, and there is no other word for it, stunning. And it is so much more than a bridge.

It is the result of a superb collaboration – something which was emphasised repeatedly by speakers.

The bridge itself opens up the next major residential development for Hamilton, the design – certainly

compared to its neighbour the Cobham Bridge – is almost from a different planet – and the pathways and gardens around it are worthy of a visit themselves. • See stories and more pictures, page 10-11.

The

Snip in time – Hamilton mayor Paula Southgate and transport minister Simeon Brown cut the ribbon at Friday’s opening.

Photo: Roy Pilott

CONTACTS

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Expo illustrates demand

By Viv Posselt

The runaway demand on tickets for a recent free women’s expo has shone a light on the growing need for support services, particularly as it relates to the small business space.

Tickets to Soda’s first ‘Power Lunch: Women in Business Expo’, sponsored by Callaghan Innovation and held at Wintec’s Bill Gallagher Events Centre, were snapped up within 24 hours. It attracted almost 150 business owners and founders from around the Waikato.

Soda general manager Anna Devcich described the event as a ‘unique opportunity’ for those attending to meet under one roof to connect with 17 different business support organisations.

“We had a really good mix of exhibitors and other attendees,” she said, “and from the feedback we’ve had, the women found it very helpful in terms of the connections they made.”

Devcich said she had been ‘surprised’ at the level of interest shown. “We wondered if it was because so many businesses are struggling right now or whether it might be that more women are seeking advice before starting businesses of their own.”

She said Soda’s primary focus, which is to connect business owners with government support and funding to help businesses grow, is an obvious attraction.

“There is huge demand for additional business support services, but finding and accessing the right support can be difficult for founders and small business owners. The expo enabled us to connect a large group of female business owners with a wider support network that will foster business success.”

As the Waikato’s Regional Business Partner (RBP), and with the support of Callaghan Innovation and MBIE (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment), Soda helps businesses achieve their goals. Based at Wintec House, the team connects entrepreneurs, business owners and key decision-makers with the right people, resources and programmes to accelerate growth and drive innovation. It also connects businesses to services offering capability funding and training, research and development services and grants.

They cover start-ups, emerging

or established businesses, with a focus mainly on businesses with no more than 50 employees.

In 2023, Soda supported hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs through a range of events and workshops. These included the Rise Up initiative, a pre-accelerator programme for female founders; a Business Fundamentals programme for new business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs; an Adapting to Change workshop; the Soda Speaker Series; and Soda Power Lunches.

The merging of the established Power Lunches with a Women’s Business Expo for the recent event was a first, Devcich said.

“We’re passionate about supporting women in business, so creating a business expo that showcased some of the support available for female business owners and founders was a no-brainer. It also helped connect business owners and founders with each other. It was a such a success, we’d like to look at doing more in future.”

The event featured speaker ‘& Again’ founder Wendy Quach, who shared her own Sodasupported success story.

Organisations featured at the expo included the Waikato and

Cambridge business chambers, Waipā District Council, Creative Waikato, Impact Hub Waikato, NZ Trade and Enterprise, South Waikato Investment Fund Trust (Swift), Soda, the Good Day Matrix and more.

In 2024 Soda is broadening its support to Waikato businesses through its Rise Up Power lunch series, via a partnership with Startup Aotearoa through which tech startups can receive free one-to-one coaching, and through drop-in clinics at the University of Waikato’s Hiko Hub.

Business stalwart moves on

Teresa Ferguson has left the Ōtorohanga Information Centre and Elevate Ōtorohanga after almost 25 years in the job.

“It’s been a privilege to spend almost 25 years there, welcoming visitors to our wonderful district and so much more. I’ve worked alongside the best people and loved every minute of being in this incredible community,” Ferguson said.

As local business co-ordinator Teresa was an ambassador and proud supporter of the Ōtorohanga community.

Elevate is the trading name for the Ōtorohanga District Development Board, a business member organisation and economic development agent working on behalf of the community.

Teresa’s dedication and passion greatly supported and helped grow local businesses through various initiatives, workshops and networking events, colleague Vanessa Drinkwater said.

“We will miss her in the office and wish her well with future endeavours.”

Soda general manager Anna Devcich says people are increasingly keen to access business support services and programmes.

Photo: supplied

Teresa and her ‘marketing manager’ John Haddad on her last day at the Ōtorohanga information centre.

Poll results

A new poll of business owners and decision-makers in New Zealand’s small and mediumsized enterprises gave the coalition Government a six out of 10 for its overall performance. But that is better than what the previous government was getting when the same MYOBcommissioned poll was held last year. The current focus on reducing red tape and delivering legislative changes that enhance or simplify business processes was a winner with business owners.

Lifestyle lift

The latest stats from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) show Bay of Plenty (34) and Waikato (31) recorded the biggest drop in sales in the three months ending July. Across the country 1369 lifestyle properties were sold, marking a 1.9 per cent rise on the previous quarter.

Profit made

Waipā District Council will make nearly $400,000 from a low-risk arbitrage deal over the next eight months. The council has borrowed $50 million from the Local Government Funding Agency and invested it in term deposits at the ANZ and BNZ banks at a higher interest rate than what it was borrowed for. It will return a profit of $384,000 when the deals mature next April.

Chopper winner

Ōtorohanga Heli A1 pilot Alex Mudford, won the Forest Protection and Services category at the recent Central North Island Wood Council Forestry awards. Mudford was a standout in helicopter operations, professionalism, dedication, and composure, judges said.

Blue September

More than 4000 men will be told this month they have prostate cancer - the country’s most diagnosed cancer. Blue September is the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s biggest fundraiser of the year. It is hoped that Blue Do Ups will raise more than $1 million to provide wrap-around support services for those living with prostate cancer.

Dealing with the trolls

Women in high profile positions seem to be copping unprecedented levels of abuse and threats – both online and in other ways. Senior writer Mary Anne Gill asks: what is going on?

Waipā mayor Susan O’Regan was at the Fieldays when she heard someone had put an effigy of her sitting on a toilet in a wheelbarrow at the end of Wilson Street in Cambridge.

The location was deliberate – it was at the end of the controversial cycleways portion of the Cambridge Connections transport project.

O’Regan hid her emotions well at Fieldays and continued with her civic duty – representing the district at the southern hemisphere’s largest agricultural expo.

But it clearly rattled her as did the news later someone had followed a family member home to her Kakepuku farm.

Both incidents were reported to the police who have found a car “of interest” in the second one.

Among elected officials, O’Regan is not alone.

National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis spoke to women leaders at the Local Government New Zealand conference in Wellington last month and talked of the “toxic” comments she is exposed to on a regular basis.

Her mothering skills among other things have been questioned by online trolls. So bad has it got that the Ministry for Women is working with Netsafe to develop a toolkit for workplaces so they can support women in leadership positions.

Taupō MP Louise Upston told

The News she had experienced the same sort of abuse for years and bemoaned the impact on families but called on the community to “call them out”.

“I do think that it has got out of hand in recent years and that is concerning,” she said.

“But you know I love Nicola’s attitude. I don’t listen to them. I don’t pay attention to them. I’ve got a job I need to do and that’s what I’m doing.

“And I do think that we have to call it out and the more people in the community who are calling it out, the better.”

Upston, a mother of three now grown-up children, said she had to prepare her family for some of the responses. Her portfolios in this government and previously have tended to be controversial – when she was Minister of Corrections, she launched mental health pilot programmes for prisoners and a new strategy to manage women offenders. This term as Social Development minister she introduced a traffic light system for the Jobseeker Support benefit and restructured the Ministry of Disabled People as Disability Issues minister.

Speaking after a “Friendly Forum” in Cambridge which at times was distinctly unfriendly, Upston said she had to prepare her family for the pressure.

“It’d be nice to say that you shouldn’t have to, but you do. I would just say to anyone who’s concerned about it, don’t be a bystander. Call it out and that’s what will help stop it.”

The abuse and trolling would prevent many women from standing for public office, she said.

“It’s a very small and unpleasant part of a job but it doesn’t take away the enormous contribution and difference you can make and that’s what I focus on.”

O’Regan is baffled by what is going on and suggests her mother the late Katherine O’Regan – who was a Member of Parliament and Waipā County councillor – did not experience anything approaching what her daughter has had to put

up with.

“It forms a part of a broader phenomenon around New Zealand but when it’s directed at you personally and in such a nasty, and aggressive and dare I say in a misogynist kind of way, you can’t help but catch your breath a little,”

O’Regan said.

“When it comes to the safety of your family, that’s the point you get your heckles up and will do everything and anything to protect them.”

The effigy was “pretty unnerving,” she said.

“Other than the obvious messaging and the symbolism that some of it displayed and conveyed, there were some issues that were a little perplexing.”

New Waipā chief executive Stephanie O’Sullivan mentioned O’Regan’s experience in passing during her powhiri speech last month and told The News she had been a recipient of attacks in her past positions.

O’Sullivan joined Waipā from Whakatāne District Council where she had been chief executive during the Whakaari/White Island tragedy.

“They (the attacks) can become quite personal and quite direct.

“And people forget that you are a member of the community and you’re a member of a family and a loved one.

“People become very strong (in their views), and the keyboard warriors come out. What worries

me is it’s a sign of elevated anxiety in our communities,” she said.

Social media had given people with “inherent biases” a platform to come out and direct comments at women and minorities as well.

How do you get women to stand for office?

“So, we women as leaders need to stand strongly together and support each other. And I’ve always been a strong supporter of that. Keep face to face conversations going as much as possible and encourage respect and value of diversity.

“And absolutely call it out,” said O’Sullivan.

Waikato women leaders have had to tread a careful line – on one hand not wanting to present themselves as overly sensitive to the sort of criticism their male counterparts experience – but point out it is women who are disproportionately targeted.

Hamilton city councillors Angela O’Leary and Louise Hutt told media earlier this year the abuse had become overwhelming and came about due to unmoderated misinformation shared on social media platforms like Facebook.

O’Sullivan said there was enough evidence of “concerted” abuse directed at women in leadership that was unique.

Upston says she loves her job but hates the politics.

“Have intense political debates and discussions on policy but don’t make it personal.”

PERRY BRIDGE, TE AWA RIVER RIDE

Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, left, at Fieldays five years ago, was adored overseas and in New Zealand for her empathy but later came in for vile criticism at home. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Susan O’Regan

Pay as they grow

A new chapter in the Hamilton Gardens’ story starts this month when international and domestic visitors from outside the city will pay to see the enclosed gardens. Senior writer Mary Anne Gill looks at what’s been involved in implementing that.

Lucy Ryan is in no doubt international tourists will see the value of paying to see Hamilton Gardens.

The gardens’ director tells the story of the American who came up to the counter recently after his visit and swiped his card over the Eftpos machine, each time donating $50.

“He said ‘how many times can I do this?’ That’s how much he liked it,” she said.

The Te Parapara fertile land –which was covered in food cropswas confiscated during the Waikato Land Wars of the 1860s and went on to become a rifle range, a sand quarry, a dog dosing area, a go karts track and the city’s rubbish dump.

Since the Rose Gardens opened in the 1970s, followed a decade later by the first enclosed gardens, Hamilton Gardens has become the most visited place in the city.

But it was Hamilton ratepayers who paid to develop and maintain the gardens and despite politicians repeatedly saying they wanted to introduce an entry fee, none of them were brave enough to take that final step.

Until two years ago, about the time Ryan took over from the longserving Peter Sergel.

For many it seemed the 52-year-

old former schoolteacher was being passed a poison chalice. She laughs at the suggestion and compares what visitors pay when they visit Kew Gardens in London or Hunter Valley Gardens in Australia.

The award-winning Hamilton Gardens – which regularly features in Tripadvisor’s list of top things to do in the world – is their equal after a $12 million investment.

The $20 foreign visitors will pay to visit the 18 conceptual gardens –while taking the financial pressure off ratepayers – is neither here nor there, supporters argue.

But domestic visitors – particularly close Waikato neighbours from towns like Ngāruawāhia, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Morrinsville and Putāruru who are used to having day trips to Hamilton to visit the gardens – might balk at paying even though 90 per cent of the site is still free.

“I do understand that people have a huge sense of ownership over this place and it’s a beautiful, special place. But we just had to draw a clear line,” says Ryan.

Which is why the gardens has introduced an annual $39 pass if bought before December 31. It is free for under 16-year-olds and there are discounts for Community Services

and SuperGold card holders.

It costs around $6 million a year to run the 50-hectare site. In the 12 months up to July, a record 537,584 people visited the enclosed gardens which includes the Indian Charbagh, Surrealist, Ancient Egyptian, Chinese Scholars’, and the Italian Renaissance gardens.

Under development are the Medieval, Pasifika and Baroque gardens.

One of the first jobs Ryan – who was born and brought up in Huntly and attended Sacred Heart Girls’ College in Hamilton – had to do at the gardens was to put the design for the visitor centre out to tender.

Hamilton architectural firm Edwards White won the tender to design it and upgrade the forecourt.

“It’s a world class entry for a world class garden,” said Ryan as she watched the concrete on the entry path getting laid 20 days out from the official opening.

Before joining Hamilton City Council as Central City Place manager in May 2020, she had been at Auckland War Memorial Museum for nine years and four years at Te Papa.

She developed a passion for all things digital when she helped develop websites and multimedia

content for a number of clients, including the Education Ministry.

The online options for Hamilton Gardens’ visitors are impressive.

The News secured a My Gardens Pass on a mobile phone and had a physical personalised card within minutes.

Hamiltonians are being encouraged to get a free MyGardens pass – by providing proof of address and photo identification - so they skip any ticketing queues.

“Because we have been free, we don’t have huge data, but we did do a little bit of a study, a survey a few years ago and it roughly worked out a third local, third domestic and a third international,” says Ryan.

One of the biggest challenges was

repurposing the original pavilions and turning a third of it into a gift shop and entry point. Last month

Hamilton tech firm Gallagher secured 15-years’ naming rights for the visitor hub.

More than 11,000 people had already registered for passes when The News visited.

Ryan’s goal is to make the gardens more self-sustaining, relieve the ratepayer burden.

“It’s going to enable us to make it better and better and better – to keep growing, keep evolving.

“I’ve managed to do some really cool things (in my career), and this is just one more,” she says.

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Gardens director Lucy Ryan in the Japanese garden, her favourite spot.

Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

From burnt offerings to

As brands go, they don’t come much bigger in the supermarket sauce aisle than Lee Kum Kee. Senior writer Mary Anne Gill visited the Chinese factory to see where the sauces originally came from.

Two things strike you entering Lee Kum Kee’s Xinhui factory in southeast China.

The size for a start on 133ha of land - the equivalent of 180 football fields - with its own port, a man-made wetland park and a solar power system on the soy sauce plant roof.

The other is the smell of fermenting soy beans coming from the more than 3000 giant green silos on the property.

And it all started with an accident 136 years ago when Lee Kum Sheung - a restaurateur in Nanshui, in the Guangdong province - burned a pot of oyster soup.

He tasted it, loved it so much that he started making and selling it as oyster sauce.

The rest is history. Today

Lee Kum Kee is a global giant worth more than $NZ25 billion producing a wide range of Chinese

and Asian sauces – including the oyster sauce – and Chinese health care products under the Infinitus umbrella.

Earlier this year the company’s New Zealand agents stepped in to save Wellington’s long-running Lunar New Year Festival when the city council pulled its funding. The company has been in New Zealand for decades, confirming the vision “Where there are Chinese, there is Lee Kum Kee.”

Headquarters are in Hong Kong, but its largest factory is to the west, at the site of the family’s ancestral home in Jiangmen city, Guangdon Province.

Xinhui factory, opened in 1996, is where the secret sauce recipes are kept and where an Exhibition Centre chronicles the company’s humble beginnings.

Eddy Lee, the oldest of the fourth generation – he has three brothers and a sister – greets us at the entrance and shows us a model of the huge site.

Two decades ago, when his father Lee Man Tat was still alive, he and his siblings conceived a plan which would effectively prevent any family discourse.

They formed a family council to manage investments and succession and set up a five-seat board – Lee Man Tat and his four sons – to run the business.

The goal was to prevent a situation which threatened the company’s viability in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Family in-fighting and court action damaged familial ties in the third generation.

A statue unveiled in 2014, carved out of white marble and completed by Chinese sculptors Liu Hongli and Liu Qiang - taken from a 2002 photo showing the council’s founding members - dominates the foyer.

Among the family council rules are that only bloodline can own shares, the group cannot hire in-laws, and the younger generation must work outside the family business before returning.

While sauces are still the company’s mainstay - along with its health care products – it is also involved in real estate. The company bought the “Walkie Talkie” tower in London for $NZ2.8 billion in 2017. Its philanthropic arm gifted more than $NZ34 million to fund the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard University and donated a 1.29km bridge near the Xinhui factory over the Nantan Sea.

We walk through the oyster shell covered entrance of the Exhibition Centre into the 1880s with a display depicting Sheung accidentally discovering oyster sauce, the family’s move to Macau after a fire in Nanshui destroyed the workshop and the subsequent move to Hong Kong.

The display includes old tools used to harvest and cook oysters, delivery bicycles, storage boxes and the company’s progress through its brands. There is even a depiction of “Sauce in Space” – Lee Kum Kee sauces fed astronauts on the Shenzhou missions.

Our next stop on the trackless tour train is the wetland park which purifies the plant’s treated

On the hunt for a place to hold your next get-together?

The park provides a superb venue for your next event or Christmas function. https:// www.sculpturepark.co.nz/ business-events It’s an inspirational setting for your clients and staff to get together, for team-building days, for creative workshops, or for engaging games.

Along its 2km art-in-nature trail, your guests will be intrigued by the sights, sounds, and scents within the park’s landscape. Mature trees, seasonal botanical delights, native birds, and imaginative art –-- there is always an appealing discovery around every corner.

The park is now a regional resource for inspiring creativity, biodiversity and land rehabilitation. This 42 acre former derelict quarry

is a restoration project that has taken more than 30 years to grow into a mature arboretum. It has become a well-established sculpture park and creative destination.

The charitable trust that runs the park depends on volunteers, donations, grants, sponsors, and business connections to supplement its affordable general admission fee. It is now a place where people meet to catch up with each other, enjoy a place to refresh, or be intrigued by sculptures and art installations.

To enquire about how the park team can help your business or group in the next few months please contact Sue Devonshire at info@sculpturepark.co.nz 0272206499.

Elegant Hunter.

Lee Kum Kee owner Eddie Lee looks at an exhibit in the China Qiaodu Museum of Overseas Chinese in Jianmen which puts his family in the top 10 of returning businesspeople who have contributed to the province. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

an empire of sauces

wastewater through a wetland ecosystem comprising specific plants, algae, fish, prawns and shellfish. It covers 16,000 square metres and can treat 4000 cubic metres of wastewater a day. The treated water is then clean enough to be reused or discharged into the adjacent Tan Jiang River.

The technology is mind boggling in its simplicity as is the visitor experience of a scenic park, a koi fish pond, bird watching terrace and fitness facilities.

The plant itself is where the humble non genetically modified soybean starts its journey. There are 18 steps to the fully automated process starting with screening, washing, soaking, cooking, blending, koji making, brine blending, propagation, fermentation (that smell again), pressing, filtration and finally packaging.

Another visitor notes the way our guide talks about soy sauces as though they are vintages of wine. The company knows its markets well and uses bottles of varying shapes, sizes and weights depending on the country.

Infinitus, a Lee Kum Kee Group subsidiary and a direct-selling company which outsells Amway in several countries, has one of its two factories in Xinhui.

It is here where the company produces myriad health and skin care products based on traditional Chinese medicine concepts.

The venture is a highly lucrative one for the Lee Kum Kee Group which ploughs money back into research and development.

We wrap up our trip to Xinhui the next day with a visit to the nearby China Qiaodu Museum of Overseas Chinese, funded by overseas Chinese, including the Lee family.

The museum, opened in 2023, honours the companies from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan that returned to Jianmen to invest in businesses.

It houses more than 40,000 pieces of cultural relics and highlights the role Chinese played globally, even here in New Zealand. Chinese first arrived in 1842 and more arrived in the 1860s – most from Guangdong in south China –during the gold rush. The museum notes the discrimination Chinese faced in New Zealand with the introduction of a head tax in 1881 which was only abolished in 1944 and resulted in 2002 with a formal apology from the New Zealand government.

New Zealand was not the only country to discriminate against China, as the rest of the exhibition shows.

As we leave, a large group of Chinese schoolchildren gather in the foyer. Eddy Lee, whose two companies Lee Kum Kee and Infinitus feature in the top 10 Chinese funded enterprises in the Jiangmen exhibition, modestly watches on. None of them would have any idea who he is, and that’s the way he likes it.

• Mary Anne Gill was on a selffunded trip to China but was a guest of Lee Kum Kee at the company’s Xinhui base.

TUESDAY 22

OCTOBER

Inside the fully automated Xinhui factory.

Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

An aerial shot of 1.33ha Lee Kum Kee Xinhui factory.

The challenges of immigration changes

There have been many immigration changes in the 30+ years since the Pathways’ immigration business was established in 1992. During this time, we have experienced 17 Ministers of Immigration, 5 changes of Government, and literally hundreds and hundreds of policy changes – and a significant border closure!

Throughout all of these changes there has been one constant, and that is the inconsistency of the rigour in which Immigration New Zealand (INZ) applies the immigration policy settings. The situation has always been that visas would be relatively straight-forward for a period only to be followed by a crackdown in which the exact same visas, with unchanged policy settings, suddenly become much more difficult with INZ applying very different interpretations of the same policy.

Anecdotally what happens (we believe) is that INZ, after experiencing the inflows and outcomes of particular visa applicants, and taking into account the “political climate”, will decide that it needs to turn the tap off (or on) and will generally do so by relying on some qualitative policy wording and not any policy change itself.

We are now very much in one of those “crackdown” periods!

For example, and in regard to visitor visas, prior to the border closure the visitor visa settings were reasonably clear as to who presented as a high-risk applicant and was likely to have their visa declined. However, following the border re-opening, and potentially also in response to the tourism industry demand, there was an inflow of these high-risk applicants, and it was apparent

that many of these applicants had little reason or intention to return to their home countries at the end of their visit. And now the tide has turned, and the bar has been raised in response but, of course, when this happens it impacts across all visitor visa applicants. Those who have a sound travel history and valid reasons to travel, including visiting family in New Zealand, and who also have good incentives to return home, are now experiencing visa difficulties. Many more applications are being declined than previously, and likely leading to more complaints and reconsiderations being made of INZ.

We experience these swings and roundabouts across the main visa categories on a regular basis.

It is also not unusual to rely on a particular policy and practice for years, with many successful outcomes, and then for INZ to suddenly do an about-turn and advise that this practice is no longer valid, and a changed interpretation now applies. INZ does provide updated guidance about changes in policy interpretation, but these are normally only issued sometime after the fact and following the industry’s approaches to seek clarification about exactly what is going on.

It is acknowledged that immigration is a particularly dynamic and ever-changing landscape with many moving parts and is subject to many different influences - and it is just about impossible to have policy settings which can stand the test of time. As a consequence, it can often be very challenging for immigration advisers and lawyers to advise clients but a consistent interpretation and application by INZ of policy settings would certainly be welcomed.

Moving the tech tron goalposts

The economy has “shunted” the goal to attract 500 skilled tech workers and their families to the Waikato. Chris Gardner reports.

The Cultivate Trust, a collective of private businesses, education providers, and public entities, set a lofty goal two years ago as part of the the in the Tron initiative.

The Waikato Business News asked trustee Mike Bennett how the campaign to grow the region’s tech economy was going.

“We just said do you think we could get 500 people here? We said let’s try, let’s go for it,” said Bennett who is also Hamilton City Council’s economic development manager.

“It’s not something that is actively tracked. We’ll know we hit it when we look around and see more tech companies hiring. The economy might have shunted that, but that’s not something that we are saying if we don’t hit it, we failed. It’s a goal to push out there as we’re striving for that goal.”

trust and Tech in the Tron campaign is more focused on micro successes.

“We want Hamilton and the Waikato to put its hand up and showcase itself as a really dynamic and great place to be tech.”

The Tech in the Tron website promotes the region’s capability in advanced manufacturing, agritech, artificial intelligence and machine learning, building and maintain next generation software, cybersecurity and managed services.

Recent profiles include commercial interior design business Designwell the University of Waikato’s co-working Hiko Hub precinct, web design and development agency N4 Studio and fibreoptic infrastructure business Tuatahi First Fibre.

The trust’s focus has been bringing the technology community together and sharing its success stories, Bennett said. It did that recently with an event where politicians mixed with sector leaders.

Technology Investment Network figures in 2023 showed the Waikato’s technology sector grew by 11.2 per cent, generating $1.3 billion with a 7.6 per cent market share compared to Auckland and Northland’s $9.6 billion (56 percent) and Wellington’s $4.1 billion (23.9 percent).

Although Tech in the Tron has an important role to ensure the Waikato is getting exposure, Bennett said it was critical to take an all-of-New Zealand approach to tech investment promotion.

“There is a great case to be made for tech investment in Hamilton and Waikato precisely because of its neighbours Auckland and central,” he said.

“Technology and innovation is a sector that thrives on agglomeration with businesses that seek to co-locate with industry peers, so it’s important to present ourselves as one sector that has multiple nodes, all accessible and each with its own unique value proposition.”

The region’s tech sector had long described the region as the Silicon Valley of New Zealand. A moniker that no longer works for the Waikato in Bennett’s opinion.

“It’s its own thing. We’re not trying to be anything like anywhere else.”

Audacious goal aside, Bennett said, the

“The primary goal of the project was always to be the storefront for the gathering place for our tech sector - both those that are here and those who want to be here. Mainly to share their stories and put up our hand and say ‘hey, there’s a really dynamic and growing tech sector here’, that maybe just don’t hear about as much. So that was the primary goal.”

The future will be less about hosting events for more than 50 ICT companies across the region, and more about asking the technology community how it can help.

“We’re basically flipping around saying, what do you guys want to do and let us support it, promote it, fund it,” Bennett said.

“There’s a whole subset of people in a bunch of different companies and industries. If they want to get together and trade notes and get to know each other better and just feel more connected to that world, let us be the organisers and the people who make it happen, but we’re not there with a microphone and a PowerPoint. We just want to truly be the enablers.”

Growing the region’s tech economy is still part of the programme. Photo: Luis Gomes

From Minogue to Magic —

Proud to support Waikato netball at every level.

You belong here.

Bridging the gap

Te Ara Pekapeka Bridge – Waikato’s newest river crossing bridge - has opened to the public linking Hamilton’s eastern suburbs with its southern neighbours. Waikato Business News staff writers look at how this might affect businesses, traffic movements and house prices.

It’s not just a bridge.” That’s the message Hamilton City Council was keen to convey days before the $166 million Te Ara Pekapeka Bridge opened to traffic.

There is all the infrastructure either side and under it - a network that caters for public transport, pedestrians and cyclists, parks, and strategic water, wastewater and stormwater networks.

Then there is the environment workincluding the extensive Mangakootukutuku gully system - and the innovative cascade outfall which manages the release of treated stormwater through a series of waterfalls into the Waikato River without causing erosion of the riverbank or riverbed. (see sidebar – By the numbers)

The plan is to link the new Peacocke subdivision – with its 7400 homes and 20,000 people - but that is some years away; in the interim what will the bridge do now for businesses, transport connections and house prices?

Will a suburb like Glenview suddenly become the place to live in Hamilton, New Zealand’s fastest growing city?

Harcourts Hamilton director Campbell Scott said Peacocke’s Akahura Terrace and the neighbouring Dixon Heights subdivision in Glenview had been well received by the market.

“The bridge is only going to escalate that,

joining the southern parts of the city,” he said.

Businesses and residents in the southernmost parts of Hamilton will be better connected following the opening of the Te Ara Pekapeka Bridge.

The bridge is the first one to span the city in 30 years and is the first part of Southern Links state highway and arterial road network, a joint project with central government, council, and iwi.

The project is designed to reduce congestion, establish a key transport network in the Peacocke suburb, and support further urban development of the region.

Businesses both sides of the city will benefit from the opportunities offered by the construction.

“Apart from an initial phase where people drive across the new bridge for curiosity, we’re not expecting large volumes of traffic coming through Peacocke until more homes are built,” said Hamilton City Council infrastructure and partnerships communications manager Simone van Asbeck.

“Our traffic forecast suggests that by 2041 around 22,000 vehicles per day will be using the bridge. Most of these will be new residents.”

Scott said: “Akahura is where the bulk of the sales have been, that’s been reasonably well received, we’ve had a few new families

Securing Your Legacy

move in, that’s a good example of what to come,” he said.

New build three bedroom and twobathroom townhouse are listed in Akakura Terrace for $865,000.

Standalone three or four-bedroom family homes are selling for about $1 million more.

Scott said there was likely to be a knock-on effect, lifting property prices in surrounding suburbs, as has happened in other parts of the city.

Preparations for the development of Hamilton’s Peacocke greenfield site south of the central business district has been hampered by challenging market conditions.

“Peacocke is sitting there, ready to respond when that market condition improves,” said Hamilton City Council general manager of growth Blair Bowcott.

“I guess we are seeing the first shoots of that change.”

The economy expanded by 0.2 percent in the March 2024 quarter following two consecutive quarters of contraction.

Inflation is expected to return to the target band of one to three percent later this year.

The Official Cash Rate, which sat at 5.5 percent from May 2023 until August when it was dropped to 5.25 percent, is likely to drop to five per cent by the end of the year. Banks have recently cut mortgage rates in response.

Grayson Clements associate thrives on simplifying the complex for clients

“Right now, market conditions are

challenging for development. That’s just a symptom of where we are at in the economic cycle. Interest rates, construction costs, sale price, that equation is challenging. Developers need a certain return to balance the risks.”

Bowcott described Peacocke as a “really exciting new development for the city”.

“Peacocke came into the city in 1989, but it required new transport connections to open up. Through the Housing Infrastructure fund, we were able to secure financial arrangements to open it up.”

Developing Peacocke was made possible by the Government providing a 10-year interest free loan of $180.3 million, and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency subsidies of $110.1 million for the infrastructure.

“Council has invested in Peacocke, we’ve taken away the transport challenges, wastewater, it’s effectively a canvas for the development community to respond to.”

“Peacocke’s going to be a home for 20,000 further people, around about 8000 homes in an incredibly environmentally diverse community with great eco systems, great topology, great vistas of the river, and it’s physically very close to the central city. It’s going to be an amazing community, a highly attractive option.

“It’s a long time coming, but I think it’s something we can be incredibly proud of.”

Grayson Clements associate thrives on simplifying the complex for clients

Expert Legal Advice for Resolving Disputes in Trusts and Estates.

Grayson Clements’ Associate Lawyer, Philip McHugh, thrives on complexity and the challenge of navigating uncertainties.

WWThat sets him apart, however, is his ability to put the individual, his client, at the center of the issue and develop bespoke legal solutions to protect them, their interests, and their families.

hat sets him apart, however, is his ability to put the individual, his client, at the center of the issue and develop bespoke legal solutions to protect them, their interests, and their families.

here are approximately 500,000 trusts in New Zealand and after 1998, the amount of capital gain in trusts has been substantial. It’s been identiﬁed that we’re now entering the largest movement of wealth in history through intergenerational transfers whether through trusts, family enterprises or estates.

Hand in hand with movements in money are disputes. As Henry Ford once said, “Money does not change people, it unmasks them.” Added complexities occur with blended situations, family dynamics and the continuous extension of relationship property in New Zealand.

Philip was recently promoted from lawyer to associate at Grayson Clements, a law firm based at Hamilton’s Innovation Park. The firm was established in 2008 by directors Michael Grayson and Andrew Clements with the desire to grow a firm that was “a little bit different” in its value-driven, clientcentric approach. It now employs 26 legal professionals across a wide range of areas.

Emily Schwikkard is an associate lawyer at Grayson Clements and says partnering with a law ﬁrm that shares your values, has expertise in trust law and has a focus on resolution is always a good idea.

Philip’s love of learning is clear, and it’s an approach that he carries into his interactions with clients.

He has a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in

Philip’s love of learning is clear, and it’s an approach that he carries into his interactions with clients.

He has a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in

The philosophy of the advocate, and that of the client, have a big impact on the strategy,

journey and outcome – and this is even more important when family is involved! Will you accept consequences by default, or do you want to take a leadership role and inﬂuence the outcome?

philosophy and political science, another Bachelor of Arts, majoring in history and religious studies and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Religious Studies from Victoria University in Wellington. After forging a successful career in retail, including a stint in the complaints department for a small ship cruise line in London, Philip went back to university to study law in 2015, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws with Honours in 2018.

Grayson Clements’ Associate Lawyer, Philip McHugh, thrives on complexity and the challenge of navigating uncertainties.

WhenEmily and the Grayson Clements advocacy team can offer a range of commercial, civil and family advocacy or litigation expertise, but with the ﬁrm’s specialisms in the areas of trust, charity and estate law, we understand the nuances of trusts and estates when it comes to dispute or litigation in this space.

He has been practicing as a solicitor since then, reaching associate level after only four years of his admission to the bar.

Emily has a diverse background in civil and commercial law, with supporting experience in relationship property, contentious estates and trust matters.

Taking sound legal advice, carefully checking legal documents, and having a clear resolution process is a good idea at any time if you’re in business or a relationship.

When I’m working with a client, I start by getting to know them, what drives them, what their internal motivators are. By knowing this, and building a great relationship, we can come to a legal solution that best suits their needs and can grow as they grow.

mean your legal structure has to be,” he says.

process is a good idea at any time if you’re in business or a relationship, but in the current economic environment it can save a lot of stress.

He is also passionate about developments in emerging technologies, including blockchain, encryption, and AI and the developing legal framework to regulate it.

I’m working with a client, I start by getting to know them, what drives them, what their internal motivators are. By knowing this, and building a great relationship, we can come to a legal solution that best suits their needs and can grow as they grow.

He has been practicing as a solicitor since then, reaching associate level after only four years of his admission to the bar. He is also passionate about developments in emerging technologies, including blockchain, encryption, and AI and the developing legal framework to regulate it.

passionate about helping his clients achieve their goals with simple legal solutions.

“Just because your life is complex, doesn’t

working at a law ﬁrm in Vancouver, Canada, before joining the legal team for the Grenfell Tower inquiry in London, where she worked as a solicitor on the inquiry into the tragedy. All this experience has helped Emily build a pragmatic, solution-centric approach and a good sense of perspective.

passionate about helping his clients achieve their goals with simple legal solutions.

At his best in complex situations, Philip is

She joined Grayson Clements two years ago, bringing with her a wealth of experience gained from various legal roles in New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Emily’s earlier career focused on construction litigation where she was involved in leaky homes cases in New Zealand. She then travelled overseas

Taking sound legal advice, carefully checking legal documents, and having a clear resolution

“Just because your life is complex, doesn’t

mean your legal structure has to be,” he says.

“Our clients are predominantly individuals and family businesses, but I’ve had some diverse experience on a range of ﬁles and worked alongside various leading Kings’ Counsel to engage the right legal expertise for our clients,” says Emily. “Our approach is to remain involved with the ﬁle, even when engaging a Barrister or King’s Counsel, as we continue to walk the journey with our clients”.

It’s no surprise then that Philip thrives on making his clients feel comfortable with their legal structures and explaining complex legal terms in plain language. His specialty is in helping individual and corporate clients structure their relationships with deeds, agreements and other documentation, and he has a particular interest in the interplay of legal persons (companies, trusts, Limited Partnerships, etc) to protect, preserve and commercialise his

Emily’s wider skill set and expertise are particularly relevant in New Zealand’s economic reality, where businesses face a myriad of legal challenges whether that

clients’ potential.

on their needs.

clients’ potential.

be contractual disputes, shareholder or trustee disagreements, debt recovery and dispute resolution. She also advises in relationship property and says whether you run a business or have personal assets and estates to navigate, it’s always good management to partner with a legal ﬁrm that understands and focuses on your objectives and to seek their advice on all legal matters.

“As a lawyer, I love exploring the ‘what if’ scenarios with clients, going down rabbit holes and getting to the heart of a situation and exploring the opportunities from there. It’s really satisfying when you’ve explored all the options available and come to a solution that is beneficial for the client, not just in protecting their assets, but also in knowing you have looked at every possibility and come to the best solution based

Grayson Clements – Design, Deliver, Protect Grayson Clements was established in 2008 by lawyers Michael Grayson and Andrew Clements, who both had a desire to grow a firm that focused on designing solutions, delivering results and protecting people. Their work and reputation have gained traction and their client base has grown organically to a point where they now have a team of 26 staff across a range of practice areas.

“It’s an even better idea to do that when your business or relationship is going well so you have clear resolution mechanisms in place to navigate things should it become challenging,” says Emily.

“I’m particularly interested in the technology space as it relates to the law, especially as so much of it has not been legislated and there’s no right answer. There’s a huge amount of work to be done in that space and that can only come through us, as legal professionals, learning more and doing more work in the field to establish some best practices.”

on their needs.

At Grayson Clements, Emily is known for providing valuable and pragmatic legal advice to clients facing complex legal challenges. She is valued for her ability to demystify legal processes, putting them into plain English so her clients can understand and make the best decisions. “We have a real focus on preserving relationships and getting the best outcome for everyone and that’s why our clients like working with us,” says Emily.

“My ethos is always to see how we can resolve legal challenges for all parties involved without needing to go through a costly court process and part of that is having good resolution mechanisms in place,” says Emily.

Emily Schwikkard

Philip McHugh

Treated stormwater passes through a series of waterfalls into the Waikato River.

Te Ara Pekapeka – by the numbers

Main bridge

• The bridge is 180m and 26m wide (the widest in the city).

• The first traffic bridge to have no central pier in the river, an important feature for our iwi partners.

• The Y-shaped pier is reminiscent of kete and woven flax and relates to the overarching idea of habitation, trade and travel.

• The pier was lifted into place using a 650tonne crawler crane – it won Lift of the Year at the 2022 NZ Crane Awards.

• The central pier, bridge beams and balustrades are made from Corten Steel which reduces long-term maintenance costs and has safety and environmental benefits.

• The design on the pier's concrete base draws references from the ancient anchor of the Tainui waka and draws inspiration from the whakataukii: Waikato taniwha rau, he piko he taniwha, he piko he taniwha. Waikato of a hundred chiefs, on every bend a taniwha (chief). The design depicts the casting of the fishing net used to gather kai (food) from the river. A large whatu (eye) or whetuu (star) faces the river, representing the many taniwha that inhabit the river and the Maaori chiefs, ancestors and kaumatua that have passed.

• Lighting and structural features minimise the impact on the native Pekapeka-touroa (long-tailed bat) and the surrounding environment, both during construction and when it is operational.

• 3060 tonnes (3,060,000kgs) of structural steel used for the structure.

• 36 steel girder segments were installed to support the bridge deck.

• Hidden inside the girders are 4900m of essential pipes for water and wastewater, and cables for electricity and internet.

• 1.17km of reinforced concrete piling for the bridge foundations.

• More than 400 patterned concrete blocks form the bridge’s southern abutment retaining walls, with each block moulded

from hand-carved panels. The unique patterns of the blocks represent the whenua (land), whakapapa (history), and awa (the river).

• The bridge has four-vehicle lanes including two T2 lanes; the first in the city. There are pedestrian and cycle paths on both sides, future-proofing the bridge for the nearly 20,000 Hamiltonians that will eventually call Peacocke home.

Pedestrian bridge

• The bridge is 71m long and 4m wide.

• Is made of about 200 tonnes (200,000kg) of Corten Steel by PFS Engineering in Riverlea. (I have a picture of the factory in the distance)

• Features two-25m tall taurapa (steel masts) which act as a cap on top of the concrete foundations.

• The two taurapa serve as a waharoa (gateway) to cross the Waikato River. This was inspired by traditional waka taurapa, the carved canoe stern piece.

• The four faces of the taurapa represent ngaa hau e whaa (the four winds). They acknowledge the connection between hapuu across the rohe (area) who descend from the ancestral canoe of Tainui by facing key sites, including Kaawhia, Taupiri and Maungatautari.

• The predominant motif is the takarangi –an intersecting spiral pattern of cultural significance - used in Maaori carving and can be commonly seen on the stern posts of a canoe, door lintels of carved meeting houses and other carved forms denoting a significant threshold. The carvings have soft and sharp curves to reflect both male and female energy.

Other project features:

• More than 700,000 people-hours on project.

• Nearly 140,000 trees and plants in the landscaping.

• A 1.6km road from the new bridge called

Bone Mineral Density Body Composition

• Urban upgrades to surrounding roads to accommodate traffic and footpaths.

• A network of underpasses, separated bike paths, and roads.

• A two-lane, four-way roundabout at the intersection of Kairokiroki Drive and Peacockes Road.

• A signalised intersection at Peacockes Road and Paoro Road.

• Relocated and newly installed utility services to cater for growth.

• New stormwater, wastewater, and water supply pipes.

• An innovative cascade outfall was created to manage the release of treated stormwater through a series of waterfalls into the Waikato River without causing erosion of the

riverbank or riverbed. The outfall cascades 15-20m to the river below and is designed to deal with flows of about 4.5 cubic metres a second – that’s enough to fill more than six Olympic-sized swimming pools every hour. Sculpted from concrete and natural rocks, surrounded by native planting and with wetland plants in the pools to help slow and treat water, it is designed to blend into the riverside environment.

• The investment will unlock a new growth area for 7400 homes and up to 20,000 people.

• The project is the first part of Southern Links, a joint project with central Government, Council, and iwi, and recognised as a Road of National Significance.

• Peacocke is being built with the support from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund, made up of a $180.3 million 10-year interest-free loan and $110.1 million of Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency subsidies.

• The wider Southern Links programme will deliver 15 hectares of gully restoration, 1.5km of stream restoration, create 30 new wetlands and install 100 bat boxes.

• The Peacocke Housing Infrastructure Detailed Business Case analysed the benefits of the HIF investment. For every $1 invested an economic return of approximately $5 could be anticipated over a 30 year period.

• In partnership with the Southern Links Tangata Whenua Working Group, cultural symbolism, tangata whenua values and storytelling have been incorporated into transport networks and three waters infrastructure in the Peacocke area. The working group is made up of local hapuu who have ancestral connections to the Peacocke area, with representatives from Ngaati Maahanga, Ngaati Tamainupoo, Ngaati Wairere, Ngaati Korokii-Kahukura and Ngaati Hauaa. Formed in 2011, the working group has been a significant partner in the delivery of the strategic infrastructure projects and the wider Peacocke programme.

Kairokiroki Drive.

One of the two taurapa which serve as a Waharoa – gateway - to cross the Waikato River

Cash rate influence on house prices felt

Latest data from realestate.co.nz indicates the market is already responding the Official Cash Rate being dropped in August.

In the 14 days immediately following the OCR announcement –the first drop in four years - there was a lift in buyer activity. Residential listing enquiries increased by 8.5 per cent.

Realestate.co.nz chief executive Sarah Wood suggested people have been waiting for the right moment to act:

“We’ve heard that people have been waiting in the wings, and our data supports that.

“Those selling can capitalise on increased buyer interest, while those looking to buy still have plenty of choice. Both buyers and sellers can benefit from the relative stability in prices.”

The national average asking price dipped to $844,595 in August, the lowest in three and a half years. It was a 0.5 per cent decrease from July and a 3.4 per cent drop on August 2023.

“This is not a significant dip.

Prices remain stable around the mid $800,000 mark, continuing the flat trend observed over the past 18 months,” Wood said.

August marks a return to seasonal listing trends as vendor confidence grows. New listings increased by 8.1 per cent year-on-year in August, which reflected an historic trend.

“Historically, the market has seen a steady rise in new listings during August, but this pattern has been notably absent since 2020. The return of this seasonal trend could indicate that we are entering a new phase of the cycle.”

In August, 16 of 19 regions recorded an increase in new listings.

In Waikato listing numbers were 656 – up 3.1 per cent. The central North Island – where there were 108 listings - was up 12.5 per cent and Bay of Plenty, 499 listing, up 18.2 per cent.

Coromandel was one of the three which bucked the trend, dropping 5.9 per cent on 64 listings. The others were Nelson & Bays – 18.1 per cent – and Northland, 11.1 per cent.

Fare changes, new stop for Te Huia

The Hamilton-Auckland train service Te Huia will add Pukekohe to its station list and from the end of this month fares for children will be halved.

During their August meeting, Waikato Regional Councillors considered the findings of an independent review of Te Huia, carried out to look at operating costs and consider how to increase revenue.

The preferred option recommended by the Future Proof Public Transport Subcommittee was to charge SuperGold passengers full fares on the two peak time services from Monday to Friday and introduce a 50 per cent fare for children aged 5 to 15.

The subcommittee also supported Te Huia calling at Pukekohe station to pick up and drop off passengers.

Councillors agreed the changes were a good balance of getting contributions in line with what’s happening nationally and increasing incentives for families to use the service.

The reduced child fares will take effect from September 30, coinciding with the school holidays. The start of Te Huia calling at Pukekohe station is yet to be confirmed.

“Central government has sent a clear message that the reliance on taxpayer funding must lessen,” said council chair Pamela Storey.

“It’s also important we look at ways to reduce the burden on our ratepayers. This has meant a necessary look at ways we can increase fare revenue.

“During consultation on our long-term plan, we received a number of submissions which indicated there was a proportion

of SuperGold cardholders willing to pay to travel at peak times on Te Huia.

“While there is the potential that some older travellers might be discouraged from travelling at all, projections suggest passenger numbers and fare revenue will continue to go up,” she said.

The first seven months of 2024 have seen 51,371 passengers on Te Huia, compared with 69,379 over the whole of 2023. Of those, 18 per cent were SuperGold card holder using the two peak hour services free; children made up 3 per cent of all passengers.

“While children make up only a small proportion of Te Huia passengers, reducing child fares will ensure travel during the school holidays, in particular, remains affordable for families and continues to be a popular activity,” Storey said.

WAIKATO AUTOMOTIVE DIRECTORY

Time to check your tyres

Whether you need a tyre for a wheelbarrow to a heavy earthmover – and everything in between, Te Rapa Tyres will have what you need.

Owner Aaron Stevens says there isn’t a tyre they can’t provide.

“If we don’t have it in stock, we can certainly source it.”

And he’d know. He’s been with the business for more than 20 years and in October, will celebrate his ﬁrst year of ownership. His knowledge of all things tyres is long term.

“We stock all major brands, and pride ourselves on the fact that if we haven’t got it, we can get it – this includes specialized tyres.”

With the season moving from winter to spring, Aaron says now is a good time to have your tyres

checked before the busy Christmas rush.

“Tyres need checking every now and then and especially as seasons change. We look at the tread depth, whether there is any perishing – this is particularly true of caravans, boat and trailers – and we can do wheel balancing and alignments as and where necessary,” he says.

They also do vulcanized repairs, a type of rubber repair which is helpful for larger tractor or similar tyres that may have a rip or large split.

You can drive in any time, whether it’s for a repair or a tyre change, but it is helpful to book too, Aaron says.

You can ﬁnd them at 718 Te Rapa Rd, next to the Gull service station and they are open six days a week.

The staff at Te Rapa Tyres are knowledgeable on everything to do with tyres. Left to right: Tony, Damian, owner Aaron, Lee, and Beau.

Fare changes and a new stop are on track for Te Huia.

Photo: NZ Rail photos

Hunter the master

Hamilton’s Hunter Moon has been named Registered Master Builders Apprentice of the Year.

Moon was trained through the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation and works for Foster Construction.

He pipped Morrinsville’s Harry Phipps, employed by Tim Whittle Homes and Okoroire’s Keegan Comber, of Mark Wilcox Builders in the Carters sponsored awards. The Apprentice of the Year competition, in its 21st year, recognises excellence among carpentry apprentices and aims to raise awareness of career opportunities in the building and construction industry. The competition assesses the project management, business presentation, and practical skills of future leaders in the sector. In the regional competition each apprentice submits details of a building

Briefs…

Tenth birthday

Hamilton specialist industrial engineers

Electrical and Automation Solutions is celebrating a decade in business with its founder Carey Penn having extra reason to blow 10 candles out. Following a kidney transplant four years ago, he is now on a mission to make customers’ lives better by consistently blowing them away with their service.

Winning builders

Grayling Builders picked up six awards plus a highly sought-after gold award at the Waikato Registered Master Builders house of the year competition last month. The home they built in Leamington, Cambridge won the supreme award with judges saying it exemplified the finest in design and craftmanship.

KickStart breakfast

Pupils in 186 Waikato schools – 61 per cent of all eligible schools - now get a nutritious breakfast thanks to the KickStart programme, a community partnership between Fonterra, Sanitarium and the Ministry of Social Development. Te Wharekura o Te Kaokaoroa o Patetere school in Putāruru joined the programme in 2009 and serves breakfast every school day/five days a week to more than 250 students.

Summer festival

Tickets go on sale this month for the Great Kiwi Summer Festival which will be held at Lake Karāpiro in November. Several events which had previously been held separately and bundled up into two days. They include the Illuminate Light and Sound Show, Armistice in Cambridge, Water World, BMX Big Air freestyle show and Outdoor Expo.

Financial cost

Dementia mate wareware - the name for symptoms caused by different diseases that affect a person’s brain, such as memory,

project they are working on then faces a twohour practical challenge to build a bench seat.

Judges said Moon was an exceptional apprentice with a deep understanding of the building industry and strong knowledge of the building code.

“His work onsite, including finishing lines, hanging doors, and installing hardware, was completed to a very high standard,” they said. “During the practical challenge, it was evident that Hunter put significant care into his work.

The bench seat he constructed was meticulously measured, with beautifully cut and sanded holes, showcasing his craftsmanship. Hunter let his workmanship speak for itself, leaving a lasting impression on the judges.” Moon will now progress to the national finals in November in Auckland.

thinking and social skills – costs the country $25 billion a year, greater than any other disease, says Alzheimers NZ. The 17 community-based Alzheimers and Dementia organisations around New Zealand are the primary source of support for the people who continue to live at home. September is World Alzheimers month and this month focus on dementia mate wareware.

Music partners

Two Waikato venues – the Sound Lounge in Te Pahū and the Cambridge Town Hall – will be treated to performances by the New Zealand String Quartet and Youth Orchestra Waikato this month as part of an ongoing partnership with Orchestras Central to develop aspiring young musicians. The mentoring workshops and unconducted performance projects saw Youth Orchestra Waikato rehearse intensively with and perform alongside the string quarter.

Lives transformed

Hamilton youth worker Tom Hunt’s concern for the lack of stable relationships for young people makes him an indispensable part of Nawton’s Western Community Centre. The need for youth workers right now is bigger than ever but they are being lost because businesses are not meeting their day to day needs. “We need to pay them better and offer more stable contracts,” he says.

A-Varntage

Te Awamutu-based Virtual Assistant firm Varntage has joined forces with the Rite Group, a home service franchise group based in Hamilton. Virtual assistants are generally home-based personal assistants who serve multiple clients, but the idea of a VA franchise is relatively new. Varntage joins 157 franchises offering building washing, lawn and garden maintenance, interior cleaning and handymen services.

• Read: waikatobusinessnew.nz for more.

Latest CBD o ce occupancy rates – continued drive towards quality

Most importantly, over the six months to June 2024, overall ofﬁce vacancy decreased from 9.5% to 7.2%.

Several buildings has been temporarily removed from the survey as refurbishment and redevelopment takes place. This has inﬂuenced the decrease in vacancy, but is a positive sign and indicates a strong conﬁdence in the future of the Central City.

“The volume of occupied stock increase in both Prime grades A and B, while it decreased in all Secondary grades C, D and E, partly reﬂecting the ongoing trend of ﬂight to quality”

Grade D was the only grade to record an increase in vacancy rate, moving from 9.5% to 10.1% in the six months to June 2024.

Finally, Grade E experienced a large decrease in vacancy from 19.5% to 9.3% between December 2023 and June 2024. A major driver of this is over 4,000 sqm of vacant space at 48 Ward Street commencing redevelopment and repurposing into a Pullman Hotel.

The total amount of space under refurbishment increased signiﬁcantly from 13,080 sqm to 27,530 sqm over the six months to June 2024. Several large redevelopment projects have commenced, including the former MSD and OT space at Anglesea Tower and 4,200 sqm of former ACC and Electoral Commission space at 18 London Street.

The total volume of secondary grade occupied stock loss outweighed the positive net absorption in the Prime A and B grades.

Overall ofﬁce vacancy in the Hamilton CBD decreased by 2.4% to 7.2% in June 2024. In terms of total space, vacant stock has decreased, but occupied stock has decreased as well, with a signiﬁcant volume of previously occupied space commencing refurbishment or repurposing to other uses.

Grade A is essentially stable, with a minor movement down to 1.1% in the ﬁrst half of 2024. Vacant space at Symmans House at Anglesea Medical Precinct was taken up by a medical tenant, joining other medical tenants in this building.

Grade B vacancy has decreased from 7.8% to 6.5% in the six months to June 2024. The ﬁrst half of 2024 saw 9 take ups of previously vacant space, the largest being a radiology occupier moving into 1,240 sqm at One on London. Although three new vacancies were observed, they didn’t outweigh the new occupancies.

Grade C vacancy decreased from 14.0% to 10.1% between December 2023 and June this year.

Net absorption was negative among all secondary grades, reflective of a challenging business environment. Despite this, a number of businesses are upgrading and sometimes expanding into higher quality spaces, reflecting the continued flight to quality trend that has strengthened post pandemic.

Despite major developments in the Hamilton CBD adding significant volumes of stock, we expect vacancy rates to remain reasonably steady, as lower-quality office stock continues to be refurbished to an appropriate quality level or repurposed into alternative non office uses. We believe that occupier demand for high-quality office accommodation will remain strong, with businesses evaluating their growth opportunities outside of Auckland and population growth driving the longterm expansion of government entities locating within the Golden Triangle.

While hybrid working and more employee ﬂexibility is here to stay, focus continues on shifting back to the ofﬁce as a primary place of work.

For businesses needing to attract high performing individuals, a high performing workplace is key. Landlords are also giving consideration to occupier needs, in order to drive occupancy, extended tenure and ultimately revenue.

To receive a copy of the latest CBD Ofﬁce Occupancy Survey, email: hamilton@naiharcourts.co.nz

Mike Neale, Managing Director, NAI Harcourts Hamilton

Top three – from left Harry Phipps, Hunter Moon and Keegan Comber.

The Te Kūiti Hamiltonian

The population of Hamilton has grown 55 per cent as it has matured from a rural support town to a metropolitan city. Chris Gardner talks to the man who has a ringside seat.

When Blair Bowcott joined Hamilton City Council in 1999, the city’s population was 119,400.

Quarter of a century later it’s up to 185,300 and is now the fastest growing city in the country – and its population the youngest - which makes Bowcott’s job as general manager of growth an influential one.

Hamilton has grown up and established its space on the national spectrum, Bowcott said.

“We’ve clearly stamped our mark as a metropolitan city.”

Metropolitan in the context of the region’s wider economic engine of Cambridge, Huntly, Morrinsville, Ngāruawāhia, Taupiri and Te Awamutu.

Born in Te Kūiti, he joined the council as finance and administration unit manager in 1999. He has filled several positions in the local authority, including acting chief executive after Michael Redman left in 2010 and before Barry Harris started less than a year later.

“When I came here, we were growing but it was very much Hamilton thinking about itself, it wasn’t really in conjunction with the other partners,” he said.

Rototuna was a smaller residential development than it is now, and there were large rural areas between the CBD and the city boundary, particularly around Rotokauri, Te Rapa North and Peacocke in the south.

“Hamilton had a lot of rural areas within that boundary, so the conversations then were that we engaged with our neighbours, but we weren’t really running up against them, because we all had land to spare and infrastructure capacity,” Bowcott said.

“Now Hamilton is building out to the boundary on most fronts, so any conversation around further growth of Hamilton really is in partnership with neighbouring councils.

“Now we’re all about boundaryless planning, boundaryless thinking, boundaryless solutions, working with our neighbouring partners, councils, iwi, councils, and government around how we think about it and build the city of the future. The conversations are far more encompassing.”

The conversation has become

more prescriptive since the Local Government Act introduced the promotion of cultural, economic, environmental and social wellbeings.

“The whole framework in terms of how we build, and deliver has changed. The scale of the conversation, the numbers, the challenges and opportunities are just that much bigger. Our conversations with the government are as a partner, as an influencer, whereas back then it was a more of a recipient.”

The council’s relationship with Waikato Tainui has also matured following the $170 million Treaty of Waitangi settlement of 1995, the completion of 87,000 square metre

‘a rising tide lifts all boats’. We’ve all lifted with that growth. You’ve seen it with the satellite towns to Hamilton: Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Te Kowhai, Whatawhata, Ngāruawāhia, Tamahere, Matangi. It’s all really rising off that wider economic eco system. The Waikato Expressway has been a major enabler for Cambridge, it has opened and given Hamilton a different perspective.”

As satellite communities grow, Bowcott is concerned it is done in an integrated and planned way.

“We plan together, we think about where likely supply will come from and what the demand is, and we ensure that we are all working together to provide that.

shopping centre called The Base in 2010, and the 30ha Ruakura Inland port operated in a joint venture with Port of Tauranga.

“They are a major investor partner in the city and that has been the fundamental change,” he said.

“The Base has been massive, but the inland port was that next level of maturity. The inland port has really changed how Hamilton is seen as well. It’s brought a new sector to the economy. The opportunity was always there, and you saw that with their Te Rapa development. It’s great to see where the partnership is now.”

So how has Hamilton growth impacted the surrounding districts?

“Our location, our natural offerings, our way of life, has been a big driver for growth,” Bowcott said.

“I think of the Māori proverb

It’s been great to see the vibrancy of those towns lift. We obviously have a massive rural residential population around the city. In the last decade we have worked with the neighbouring councils to limit the amount of that residential around the city. We want to ensure that the city can expand in the future, and some of those rural residential settlements on the boundary make it quite challenging, some of that may be on the highest valued land which may be better used for rural purposes, as opposed to being carved up.”

Bowcott gave Co-Lab and Future Proof as examples of the council working with other local territorial authorities and, in the case of Future Proof, iwi and government departments as well.

Co-Lab is a council-controlled organisation that helps members

share opportunities, and Future Proof, a forum for councils, iwi and government departments which next meets on September 5, is an example of joined up thinking.

“That partnership thinks about growth in an integrated manner, how we join up and deliver solutions together, including transportation,”

Bowcott said.

“It’s important when we think about growth, and partnership with iwi, and councils, it’s not just about the land use, it’s about how we fund the infrastructure that enables that land use.”

“The rate of growth is putting extreme pressure on our systems.”

With that pressure has come high expectations.

“Community expectations of the city have lifted. People expect the environment to be highly respected, high-quality amenity, good transport connections, good community facilities. The scale of what we now think about today, versus what we were dealing with back then, are just that much bigger.

The implications are that much larger because of our population, our size, what we’re thinking about is bigger as well.”

Twenty years ago, Temple View was absorbed into the Hamilton city boundaries from Waipa District. Bowcott described the absorption of further settlements on the city boundary such as Matangi, Newstead, Ngāhinapōuri, Ōhaupō, Rukuhia, Tamahere and Tauwhare as “highly politically challenging”.

“There will be some targeted expansions of the boundary around the city where areas are identified for growth. But a significant reach out to capture villages and communities will be a far bigger conversation driven by other factors.

“There have been various organisations calling for reform of local government and consolidation that may occur in the future.”

Water reform with joined up entities, for example.

“I’m not sitting here saying let’s try and expand and capture those villages, I’m saying let’s work with those councils really closely to understand their aspirations for those communities and how they best connect in with Hamilton and how we can deliver joined up solutions.”

A high school old boy

Blair Bowcott was born and raised in Te Kūiti but considers himself a Hamiltonian.

He graduated from Waikato University in 1990 with a BMS Hons in Accountancy and Finance after attending Te Kūiti High School in Years 9 and 10 and Hamilton Boys High School in Years 11 to 13.

After university, Bowcott worked for Ernst & Young becoming a qualified chartered accountant, then worked as an accountant for Fletcher Aluminium.

Bowcott joined Hamilton City Council as finance and administration manager in 1999 before serving as acting general manager of corporate services between September and December 2007 when he became deputy chief executive and general manager of programme and finance.

He was acting chief executive from November 2010 until April 2011 when he became general manager of performance. From 2015 he served as executive director of special projects and became general manager of growth three years ago.

Blair Bowcott was born in the King Country, but he considers himself a Hamiltonian now.

Hamilton is New Zealand’s fastest growing city. Photo: Hamilton and Waikato Tourism.

A small company doing big things

Proud to be one of the foundation tenants for the Hiko Hub on the Waikato University Campus is Resolution8.

This quiet company is at the cutting edge of ﬁnding practical and innovative technology answers for its clients, with an emphasis on New Zealand’s medium to large companies and organisations.

As its name suggests, Resolution8 works across all sectors helping their clients produce outcomes – “resolution” to their challenges and opportunities. They offer a speciﬁc range of services based on identifying what clients actually need and what will work best for them, rather than being tied to a speciﬁc set of products and tools.

“Our job is to work with our clients; to determine their needs, identify what outcomes they are looking to create and then help deliver the solution to realise those outcomes. We do this by utilising our team, tools and capabilities alongside our clients’ teams and business planning. We help scope, design, plan and then oversee the implementation of change,” says CEO Peter Gilbert.

Understanding through consultation and delivering to each client’s needs is a necessary part of what they do. The in-depth knowledge they have of the IT world means they can compare software vendors’ products and solutions to identify best ﬁt for their client.

Peter references an industry full of many different vendors selling many different things – and often their focus is more on making their own products ﬁt rather than prioritising what the client actually needs.

“We don’t sell boxes and wires; our expertise is on making solid and informed recommendations about the best vendor and solution to match with a client based on their needs and desired outcomes”, he says.

“Our

job is to work with our clients; to determine their needs, identify what outcomes they are looking to create and then help deliver the solution to realise those outcomes. We do this by utilising our team, tools and capabilities alongside our clients’ teams and business planning. We help scope, design, plan and then oversee the implementation of change.”

CEO Peter Gilbert.

“So, we can develop a technology strategy and identify the vendor(s) that would deliver the best systems and products for the speciﬁed requirements, and then we work with them on the development, implementation and integration of that solution,” Peter says.

“We had one company for example, where a vendor had suggested they needed to spend $50,000 on a new server and server room that they would provide.

“Yet we were able to come in and show the client how they could achieve everything they needed to do in the Cloud, with a savings of $40,000.”

Louise Mercer, Digital Advisory Lead agrees.

“Businesses require forward movement and planning, and they are

something we are skilled at.”

Peter says they are “a small company that does big things” and while their focus has been New Zealand-wide, they are now capable of moving on to international projects as well.

“We’ve done a lot with the education sector here; that was a huge data job and one we can easily offer in other countries, like Australia for example. A number of our staff do have international experience, which of course has been of great beneﬁt to our clients.”

Resolution8’s clients span from Whangarei to Invercargill and everywhere in between, public, government and private business. Great examples of the work they have done can be viewed in case studies published on their website Resolution8.com.

Other examples of their work include projects to understand the requirements for an e-commerce solution for a wellknown health products company, run the process to help them ﬁnd a suitable solution and partner to create a new online store experience.

looking for a return on investment. We measure what is happening and present that back to them so they can see what’s going on and what could be done to improve outcomes.

“For this kind of work, you do need the right people, the right tools, whether that be a project manager or coordinator or simply a product; it’s understanding exactly what the client needs and providing them a way forward to achieve that.”

That it works well is not in doubt! Resolution8 have a loyal and long-term client base who continue to re-engage their wide range of services.

For one client, Resoltuon8 were a key part of them transforming their business with a result of a net $400,000 deﬁcit to a $500,000-plus surplus – in less than one year – by providing the business intelligence tools in data and visualizations to the right people so they could make higher-quality decisions.

“We can help create actionable insights based on the data, and the money invested in advice helps to create a way forward for effective decisionmaking,” she says.

For large organisations or those where boards or trusts have to make decisions based on the evidence they have in front of them before investing what can be very large sums of money, Resolution8 are expert at quickly spinning up data integration tools that provide the visibility they need to make the decisions they have to make.

“Some of these projects can be multimillion-dollar ones – and that means the investment has to be soundly understood by those who are going to sign off on it,” says Vivek Sharma, Data and Innovation lead.

“Our ability to gather and present this information allows them to evaluate it on every level – all that evidence has to be clearly put together and that is

And a national project that needed to be delivered rapidly, coordinating regional councils, a technical lead council, a vendor, and two competing (but cooperating very nicely) fertiliser providers. This solution was delivered, and the system is currently running for the entire Regional Council sector in NZ allowing compliance monitoring and audit, alongside reporting to central Government.

From simple projects to creating national frameworks, Sally Rosenberg, Project Delivery Lead says Resolution8 has been called ‘expert generalists’ – a term which she believes is complimentary to the company’s philosophy.

“Whether we are looking at programme management, privacy impact assessments, or business cases right through to Chief Information Ofﬁcer as a service, we can help provide what our clients require,” she says.

Like Exaba, the company is rapt with their ofﬁces at the Hiko Hub.

“As a foundation tenant, we were able to work with the [Waikato] University to help iron out concepts and practicalities getting things ready for the rest of the amazing businesses that are here with us now – it’s a great place to have coffee, conversations and enjoy the mutual beneﬁt of collaboration through the authenticity of the conversations. We’ve all got very similar values, and the connections here really satisﬁes those with natural curiosity,” she says.

A few of the team from Resolution8 enjoying the HIKO hub

Hiko Hub Fuels Exaba’s Leadership in Data

One of the most exciting trends happening in Hamilton these days is the fast-growing sector of IT. It’s something that is now New Zealand’s 3rd largest export earner, thanks in part to a strong University of Waikato Computer Science department. What this has done in the past decade is to provide a rapid-growth area attracting some of the top IT specialists to a place where global technology trends can begin and evolve.

One such company, Exaba, is a case in point.

The exponential growth of data driven companies has been a strong feature of the past decade and much more so in the last couple of years.

The problem is, according to CEO Peter Boyle, that the storage costs for data, which often are purchased through tech giants such as Amazon or Microsoft, are becoming prohibitively expensive.

“What Exaba is doing is two-fold – on one hand we are developing a product to cost effectively and easily store data inside Data Centres, for primary uses cases such as backups and data analytics. On the other, provide a solutions team for utilisation of that data ideally on our platform,” he says.

“A number of companies we talk to spend a lot of money on data storage$20,000 to $100,000 for middle-sized companies and much more for big ones,” says CTO Dr. Stuart Inglis.

“In extreme cases we have heard, it can cost almost half their sales revenue.”

Exaba’s name reﬂects this; it is short for exabyte analysis. An exabyte is the unit of size when it comes to what computers can handle; it is a unit of digital information storage equal to approximately one quintillion bytes, or 1024 petabytes.

This scale of storage is becoming necessary due to the exponential growth in data generated by various technologies, including cloud services, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things.

“New Zealand companies have so much data – and it’s a bit like trying to store it all in a cupboard under the stairs with overﬂow to storage sheds. Companies can only afford to pay for a small fraction of it in the cloud. In addition to providing product and services, we also have a large bespoke cloud with compute, GPU and petabytes of storage capacity.” says Stuart.

“The ability to store it here in New Zealand means they know where their data is, they don’t need to pay exorbitantly for it and our solutions team, headed by Director of Solutions Nick Humphries is there to be able to help utilise their data to the best effect. If a client needs help, they ring locally and can get the answers they need.” says Peter.

So Exaba came into being, with a combination of professional services thanks to Exaba acquiring LuminateOne and their team’s expertise in data storage/analytics infrastructure compatible with AWS cloud.

“We hear from people wanting to store, analyse and backup their data

locally for reasons of performance and data conﬁdentiality, and then connect it into their existing systems for more efﬁciency,” Nick Humphries says.

“New Zealand has strong privacy laws so there are those who need and want that protection, such as banks, Iwi, NGOs for example. Up until now, New Zealand hasn’t had a lot of IT infrastructure – but that is now rapidly changing.”

After acquiring Nick’s team, Exaba has seen the company double in size in the past month to 21 staff.

Nick’s team can do the work when it comes to building and connecting systems needed for utilising data so that it can be useful to companies.

“We love projects where we can deliver impact through clever solution

“We love projects where we can deliver impact through clever solution design. is can range from integrating data across separated systems, right through to creating business process solutions.” Nick Humphries

design. This can range from integrating data across separated systems, right through to creating business process solutions.”

“Many companies are looking at how they can provide AI models; for example, you can personalise a ChatGPT chatbot to create the rules for a bank which can be interactive with indepth answers for those looking for information,” Nick says.

“Companies have a lot of intellectual property tied up in their data – and that can be made to be useful as part of the data analysis and utilisation skills our team can help companies create and use.”

“Part of our job is to be able to work with clients and design systems based on their needs that gives them a strong set of tools to help move the business or company forward.”

The work isn’t restricted to New Zealand – international companies are looking to Hamilton for answers when it comes to next level IT, and Exaba is proud to be part of that shift.

The ability for both teams to work side by side for clients both nationally and internationally is already well tested.

In addition, Exaba is busy in the community.

“We give back; Nick is involved with the Sir Peter Blake Trust, and the Hyundai NZ Pinnacle Programme,” Peter says.

“Stu teaches entrepreneurship courses at university and currently has two groups of students teaching startups.”

For all three, there is an excitement at working in the Hiko Hub; an initiative put together by Waikato University.

“It’s an amazing place, a real ecosystem of people who come together working on all sorts of things and as always, over a coffee, you start to talk to others who have great curiosity and minds focused on new trends and changes, and in doing so, the information highways grow,” Stuart says.

“Everyone used to work from home – this place has been going for three months and already there’s lots who choose to have their business here instead. There’s plenty of free parking, open doors, it’s active and it’s great.”

“The Hiko Hub is cool, lot’s always happening. Easy parking for customers,” Nick says.

Peter Boyle was previously CTO of software company OpenBet (UK), where he led a team of 1,500 engineers to create a world leading product.

Dr. Inglis is a non-exec Director of the Infusion Group, who provide enterprise accounting and business management software. Infusion’s subsidiary NetValue is a global expert in the development and running Life Sciences, Agri-Tech and SaaS applications. Dr Inglis is also Operating Partner for NZ Venture and Private Equity ﬁrm, Altered Capital.

Nick Humpries is a trustee of BLAKE, and previously director and owner of LuminateOne before it was merged with Exaba.

Peter Boyle, Nick Humphries and Dr Stuart Inglis say Exaba is at the forefront of data storage and software development thanks partly to its involvement with the Hiko Hub initiative.

The Cambridge Chamber of Commerce After 5 function was held at Cambridge Raceway’s Taylor Street Club where board member Peter McDermott, chief executive Dave Branch and Off the Track head chef Michelle Thomson greeted guests. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Robbie Parker, of Foleys Plumbing in Hamilton, was pictured with Plumbing World Area Manager Joel Woodham after winning the Waikato-King Country finals of the Young Plumber of the Year contest.

New Waipā district council chief executive Stephanie O’Sullivan - with her mother Mary from Tokoroa – was welcomed to her job at a powhiri in the Don Rowlands Centre at Karāpiro.

Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Daniel Smith, director and registered architect of Edwards White – who designed the Hamilton Gardens Visitor Arrival Centre - with Hamilton Gardens director Lucy Ryan in front of the new entrance which officially opens on September 18 when out of towners must pay an entry fee while Hamiltonians are free.. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

Waipā deputy mayor Liz Stolwyk cutting into the cake made for Te Awamutu Library’s 150th anniversary celebrations. Watching on was library supervisor Donna Wilson, centre, and Waipā District Council’s customer and community services group manager, Sally Sheedy. Photo: Viv Posselt

Spotted at last month’s talk in Waipā by Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen are, from left, Megan Thomson of Paua Architects in Hamilton, Anne-Marie Brown of Colliers International (Hamilton), and Edyn May and Charlie Sanderson Dollery, both there with Kaz Design in Cambridge. Photo: Viv Posselt

Out and about…

The News camera has been busy at Waikato’s newest bridge in the last week as Roy Pilott and Mary Anne Gill picked up the stories behind it and filed these pictures.

Peter Meyer is an engineer who has been with the Waikato River bridge project since he graduated from Waikato University in 2020. As first-time projects go, they don’t get any bigger, he told The News.

The invited guests at the opening of the new bridge over the Waikato River are welcomed ahead of the start of speeches.

Former Hamilton Mayor Andrew King, whose work on the bridge project was acknowledged at the opening, is flanked by Tim McIndoe (left) and Martin Gallagher, who have both served as MPs and councillors for the city.

The unveiling of the name of the new bridge – Te Ara Pekapeka – was more emotional because the plaque recorded it has been opened by Kīngi Tūheitia.

Chalmers Properties is once again enjoying the sweet taste of success after cooking up another smoothly executed design and build project with Fosters.

“It’s cookie-cutter stuff now,” said General Manager David Chafer. “We’ve had the same project manager now across five consecutive builds, and we’ve got to know some of the Fosters’ quantity surveyors, construction teams and site managers well.

“It’s like making a cake; they know us and our expectations and just get on with it.”

Once again, Fosters contributed all the right ingredients to Chalmers Properties’ latest development at Hamilton’s Te Rapa Gateway.

“They have a large team of well-qualified, experienced people with the skills to nail builds like this – and they’re easy to work with from a relationship perspective,” David said.

Fosters was hired to design and build two warehouses incorporating offices, secure concrete yards and separate parking facilities within a 6700sqm footprint.

“We were keen to integrate sustainable features – low-carbon concrete, permeable concrete in the carpark areas, full LED lighting, and designing

Working with Fosters has been a recipe for success.

David

Chafer, General Manager Chalmers Properties

the roof to hold solar panels in the future. Fosters rolled with these requirements very easily because they are GreenStar Accredited professionals,” David said.

Fosters’ flexibility in being able to integrate a client fitout for national business Steel and Tube, which signed an early lease agreement on one warehouse before it was built, was appreciated.

“They were very accommodating around adding extra items into the client fitout,” David said.

“We also decided to increase the size of the offices, which required a building consent variation, but they worked hard to ensure our project was still finished on time.

“We were able to hand over the building when we were due to, as per the lease agreement, and that’s pretty key for our customers.”

Chalmers Properties owns more than $600 million worth of real estate across New Zealand and is already working with Fosters on its next project for RML Engineering.

“The best endorsement is that our tenants are really happy and pleased with what they’re leasing,” David said. “For us, working with Fosters has been a recipe for success.”

Got a build project in mind? Let’s work together.