Wakefield Street Student Accommodation

Client: Cedar Pacific
Location: New Zealand
Project: 697 Student Accommodation Rooms
Completion Date: February 2021
Completion Time: 27 Months
Value: $103 Million

The 35 – 39 Wakefield St project is a purpose-built student accommodation facility, developed and owned by Cedar Pacific, and managed by specialist student accommodation operator, Unilodge, for the Auckland University of Technology.

The two towers provide 697 student beds, and a 6-storey interconnecting podium building which houses communal student facilities including dining, theatre, games, study, and outdoor entertaining areas. The lower levels of the development consisted of 5,000sqm of ‘cold shell’ space, which was ultimately fitted out under an integrated fitout arrangement with the university to provide office space and specialist gymnasium and basketball court facilities for the wider campus.

Faced with budget and programme pressures after a competitive tender process with others, repeat client, Cedar Pacific, engaged Icon under an intensive 8-week ECI process to comprehensively analyse the project’s design. Through development of an alternative structural design solution with the consultant team (and other value engineering and supply chain initiatives), Icon was able to deliver a D&C proposal that achieved the client’s cost and programme requirements.

“Overall, we found the experience with Icon refreshing and certainly viewed it as genuine collaboration.” ~ Jo McDonald, Development Advisory Services