Tory St Seismic Heritage Project

In September 2023, Built Construction Group undertook a seismic upgrade to the heritage building at 13 Tory Street in Wellington’s inner city, with the project engineer being Foster + Melville Architects. The upgrade was needed to achieve a structural integrity rating of 70% New Building Standard (NBS).

In addition, we were employed to improve the ground and first floor commercial spaces, including replacing the building’s shop front facade, and to convert the basement to a usable space for commercial tenants. We were also tasked with rejuvenating the second floor apartment for tenanting.

Our work involved defitting the tenanted spaces, then excavating several ground beams for structural steel to be concreted into. We cut through the floors to allow the structural steel to run internally to the top of the building. The steel was brought into the building and the frames constructed onsite and signed off by a structural engineer for compliance.

Built Construction Group installed ceiling linings with a 60-minute fire rating between each of the building’s tenanted floors. And fitted fire-rated steel windows and doors into the rear of the building.

A base-build fitout was completed to bring each floor up to a tenantable standard, and the historic timber flooring was reinstated to maintain the existing look of the heritage building. A new shop front in accordance with Wellington City Council’s heritage requirements was also constructed.

One of the challenges faced in this project was the discovery of significant water coming up from the ground into the basement, as the building was built on reclaimed land. We resolved the issue by installing additional plumbing and constructing a sump pump in the basement. This catches the water and sucks it out before it can accumulate, keeping the basement dry. We also applied a waterproof membrane to the concrete floor in the deck for additional protection.

There was minor disruption to the public when bringing the structural steel up to the first floor, but this was managed efficiently thanks to careful coordination with our subcontractors and a Traffic management plan overseen by Wellington City Council.

We had four builders working on the project with a range of subcontractors, including a demolition team, excavators, scaffolders, concrete layers, structural steel specialists, fire systems and joinery specialists, waterproofing specialists, electricians, plumbers, and floor covering installers.

The project was completed in December 2024, having taken around 15 months bringing the building up to 70% NBS for structural integrity and ensuring full compliance with all council requirements. Additionally, the new shop front was successfully constructed in accordance with the council’s stringent heritage regulations.