Seismic Strengthening work on large entertainment arena

Christchurch’s Wolfbrook Arena is one of New Zealand's largest indoor entertainment venues, and plays host to many of the city's sporting, industry and entertainment events. It’s a venue that has a constant flow of customers and events scheduled so, finding downtime for maintenance and repairs is a tough ask.  With the arena requiring roof strengthening to meet earthquake compliance codes, the key to success lay in completing the required work quickly, efficiently and within a tight time frame. Citycare Property was awarded the contract in 2023 with a three-month window to install 20 steel beams, and an additional 10 steel roof supports during the quieter Christmas period. 

“Citycare Property received engineering design from our client Venues Ōtautahi and subsequently managed the shop draw process, manufacture and installation of the steel beams. The two trickiest parts of the project were the removal and then reinstatement of several air conditioning units which were 2 metres in diameter and the second issue was the height that we were working at with contractors working 24 metres above ground,” says Andrew Banks Senior Project Manager.

With time of the essence, Citycare Property had to come up with some innovative methodologies to ensure we completed the project on time. Traditionally we would use scaffolding to work at height, but we trialled elevated work platforms that reduced the construction period by six weeks. The elevated platforms brought their own associated health and safety challenges with the crew working at such heights. 

“We had one day when we suffered a mechanical failure with the lifting equipment. We quickly fell back on our approved health and safety plan to bring team members down safely using a second scissor lift that we had on site in case of just such an emergency. We had a great team of ten working on the maintenance project, and not only did they bring the project in ahead of schedule but we came in significantly ahead of budget. This project clearly demonstrated the skilled teams of contractors that we have available to deliver on important seismic strengthening work.”