Coolpak construction goes to plan

Commercial building company Timaru Construction has recently completed its largest project in 12 years of operation, the build of a 10,900sqm world class cool store facility at the Izone Business Park in Rolleston, Christchurch for one of its Timaru clients, Coolpak. Coolpak has been a client of Timaru Construction for many years.
Coolpak’s multi-million dollar expansion into Christchurch was driven by the significant growth of a variety of food manufacturing, processing, and exporting companies in Canterbury, combined with the location of future logistics hubs and shipping options for its clients.
Izone offered these in droves, with large flat sections of land, road access around three sides, and adjacent to the railway, Lyttelton’s Midland Port inland facility, and Port of Tauranga and Port of Timaru’s inland docks.
Timaru Construction managing director Graham Cadigan says his team arrived on site in June 2016 to begin stage one of a five stage initial build.
The first stage encompassed the first of four cold stores, an engine room, and environmental loading area (ELA), and had to be completed in time for Coolpak to start operating in January.
“The challenges for us were meeting the needs of Coolpak and the needs of Coolpak’s clients by getting one area finished so they were able to start operating,” Graham says. “Then as soon as we got one finished, we had to get the next one finished.”
Timaru Construction stuck to Coolpak’s construction programme throughout the two-year build, which eventually also comprised four blast freezers, a forklift charging room, and an amenities and office building. “It went really well,” Graham says.
“We had an excellent group of subcontractors on board, and what really impressed us was the way the project team, from the engineer right through to the labourer who swept the floor, has all worked together to achieve this result.
“That was a critical element on the project. “The client, the engineer, our team of builders, and all of the subcontractors, it was a really good project team.
“And in terms of health and safety which is always important to us on every project, we were lucky to get through without any major incidents,” Graham says.
He says feedback from Coolpak since the whole facility has been open is that it is already filling up and they need a bigger one. “They have the ability to expand on site,” Graham says.

Graham says although this is Timaru Construction’s largest entire project to date, when broken down into its five separate components the company has completed many similar sized projects.
Timaru Construction has provided a high quality commercial building service to the South Canterbury district for the past 12 years.
Originally established by Ross Lund and Lindsay Stowell, Timaru Construction welcomed Graham to the team in 2015.
Timaru Construction is a company just shy of 30 people including four administration staff, six senior foremen, 15 tradesmen, and four apprentices at various levels of the programme.
“We always make sure we have apprentices on the team to ensure the industry always has construction tradesmen coming through,” Graham says.
“The level of skill in the trades is nowhere near where it used to be, so we are trying to make sure when our apprentices come out of their time, they have had experience of the full spectrum of construction work.”
Timaru Construction is a great place for apprentices to practise a wide range of skills, since the company works on all sorts of projects from earthquake strengthening to new builds.
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