Heritage building work nearing completion

Renewed use of a prominent heritage building  on Dunedin’s waterfront is getting closer.Lund Dunedin was completing a 600sq m concrete floor in the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile building in Thomas Burns St yesterday and an announcement about the building’s future could be made in the coming weeks.

The laying of concrete was one of the last elements of strengthening work which, along with new lifts and stairwells, would allow new uses of the building, company director Russell Lund said.

"It is a delicate operation, as it is a concrete overlay of the existing timber floors, threaded around dozens of timber columns," Mr Lund said.

"The concrete floors tie the building together with hundreds of H16 reinforcing bars in the concrete that are also drilled and glued into the 600mm-thick stone walls."

Mr Lund said the project included use of recycled native timber.

The building was constructed from 1872 and it began as Otago Wool Stores for stock and station agents Driver Stewart and Co.

Uses over the years have included as an air-raid shelter, offices and warehousing, and the upper storey was let to clothing manufacturer Sew Hoy and Sons, it was stated in Heritage New Zealand information.

Indoor karting was added in 1991.

The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co, which provided investments and loans for trade and commerce in New Zealand and Australia, occupied the building until the 1960s, when the business ceased operations.

Mr Lund said the project had generated interest internationally.

The premier men’s and women’s football teams from Northern AFC in Dunedin had chipped in on some of the work, carting around concrete blocks and laying out reinforcing steel.