Case Study: The Colombo - Christchurch
The Colombo showcases our ability to respond to a large scale project with speed and accuracy.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Lilly Cooper Dixon and her property team had an immediate need for new Rentable Area Surveys on a large number of tenancies at The Colombo. She already had experience with our Rentable Area Surveys on several sites across greater Christchurch.
After an urgent site visit on Christmas Eve, we were requested to measure over fifteen tenancies through the first few weeks of January. The centre was undergoing a proposed tenancy reconfiguration, along with the establishment of several new anchor tenants that would draw in more foot traffic.
Shopping centre’s typically require work outside of normal hours to reduce the impact on tenancies, and for public safety. In this case we had to find ways to adjust our entire methodology to accommodate the speed of the work request.
RENTABLE AREA SURVEYS :
Surveyed measured floor plates of the retail spaces for rental calculations. These plans also show the actual areas used for services, amenities, lifts, lobbies, and even excluded regions.
Rentable Area Surveys are also useful for :
property valuations and leasing documentation.
area calculations for utilities, i.e. carpet and vinyl areas for cleaning.
desk and/ or people calculations per square metre for fire engineering considerations.
a basis for gross floor area calculations of multi level buildings
basic foundations for architectural and development designs.
The Colombo is one of Christchurch’s premier shopping centres. Established immediately after the earthquakes, it encompasses several buildings in the central city with a majority of the tenancies having external facing shopfronts.
There are a range of boutique clothing and furniture outlets, a brand new 24/7 fitness centre, cinema, and a vibrant food court.
The property team has also excelled in making this a community driven centre, so pop-up stalls and family focused events are commonplace.
Our Methodology :
Utilising the few hours either site of normal opening times, we were able to measure the common food court areas and most of the internal shop fronts with traditional survey equipment without impeding on the public.
We also focused on base building items like columns, bulkheads and beams that would allow us to define the tenancy boundaries with greater detail. Many of these features are excluded from Rentable Area Surveys, but they do assist the surveying technicians in drawing the plans.
Once normal centre hours took over, we moved to the external shopfronts, and then hand held measurements of all the tenancies. These measurements were based off the columns and bulkheads throughout the centre. This allowed us to more clearly define the various partition walls, glazing lines and shop front bulkheads.
The Colombo project highlights Exact Solutions capacity to measure at scale in high intensity environments.
We were able to provide over 15 plans to Cooper and Co within the expected time frame. They also added further requests during the survey project which we were easily able to accommodate. Our 10 years of skills and expertise in shopping centres allows us to approach a project like this with clarity and efficiency.
We look forward to further work coming up at The Colombo and with other Cooper and Co. developments around Christchurch.