Hamilton’s $14.5 million Parkhaven wins supreme award

BY WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS ON 03/11/2019

A landmark mixed-use building in Hamilton’s CBD has taken out the top honour at Waikato’s major property awards.

Hamilton’s $14.5 million mixed-use Parkhaven development won the Baker Tilly Staples Rodway Supreme Excellence Award at the We Are Waikato Property People Awards, run by the Property Council.

The complex, which overlooks the cityscape and Hamilton’s green belt, also won the Boffa Miskell Urban Design Award.

The 2300 square metre development by Black & Orange was completed in January and includes a café, high-end residential apartments and penthouses.

“Parkhaven has added to the rejuvenation of the northern end of the city and serves as an inspiration to the wider property industry for future mixed-use developments,” said the judges. “The Parkhaven Team followed urban design best practice and principles when crafting this project, as they transformed a group of dated single level buildings into a premium five-story complex.”

Black & Orange director Mitch Mace says it was very much a team effort, including construction company Form Building and Developments, Edwards White Architects, and engineers and planners BCD Group, who are also the anchor tenant and have the same owners as Black & Orange,. “We brought a lot of local talent together and we saw it as a team exercise. There’s a whole lot of small things that makes this thing what it is.”

Fellow director Jonathan Brown particularly acknowledged the role of the architects. “Quite a lot of kudos goes to Edwards White Architects in terms of their vision for the site and their attention the whole way through.”

Parkhaven has won several awards during 2019, and Mace says the Property Council awards, coming from people they work with regularly, were “one of the bigger ones for us, to be recognised within the industry”.

He thinks the building probably stood out for its commitment to mixed use, which is not a new concept but is still relatively rare in Hamilton,  and for its quality.

“I don’t think anything of this sort of overall quality between all the uses has been done [in Hamilton].”

The final tenant, RPS Homes, will move in to the ground floor by the end of the year, and Mace, who is also a director of BCD Group, says tenants are enjoying the building. “Obviously we’re in the building and it’s going great for us.”

The awards, in their ninth year, recognise excellence in leadership and innovation in the property industry. Entry is open to members and non-members of Property Council New Zealand who are based in Waikato. This year 21 nominations were received across nine categories, with more than 300 people attending the awards dinner at Wintec’s Atrium on October 17.

Property Council’s Hamilton branch president Brian Squair said it’s fantastic to see the Waikato transforming through new innovative developments. “The awards also celebrate the outstanding contributions of the many individuals and teams that put their heart and soul into the region’s property industry.”

Continue to read at http://wbn.co.nz/2019/11/03/hamiltons-14-5-million-parkhaven-wins-supreme-award/