voco Auckland City Centre and Holiday Inn Express Auckland
A first for Aotearoa
As international travellers and domestic visitors make their return to Auckland to explore our city, it is only appropriate that they now have not one, but two new hotels to choose from.
Located in the heart of Auckland’s CBD, on the corner of Albert and Wyndham Streets, sits the newly opened 200 premium room voco Auckland Hotel and 294 room Holiday Inn Express Auckland Hotel. Aotearoa’s first dual branded hotel complex.
The 39-storey building have the hotels stacked on top of each other, with the Holiday Inn Express situated in the bottom half of the building while voco occupies the top half. With separate entrances and a distinct design look and feel between the two, the development is home to a range of food and beverage offerings, a wellness centre and an incredible roof top bar on Level 38.
We supplied the vertical transportation for the development which includes one Schindler 9300 escalator and eight Schindler 5500 elevators. One of the elevators is a dedicated firefighting lift designed to meet global EN81-72 building standards.
Collaboration is the key
The project site is located on a very small footprint of land with busy roads surrounding it. We were required to bring our products on to the site with a tower crane to access the higher points within the building.
We completed our installation in stages aligned with the overall construction timeline. Working with Icon New Zealand and key stakeholders, we began our installation on the lower floors to the mid-point of the building while the upper floors and lift shaft were being completed. Then, the top floors were handed over to us so we could complete the installation. This process ensured we were able to speed up the installation process by approximately two months.
Huseyin Yalaz, Major Projects Manager for Schindler New Zealand says "Given the complexity of the project, we brought together our most experienced team to carry out the installation, commissioning, and safety inspections. In support of the project programme, we carried out a 2-stage installation to accelerate the completion of the first three elevators to hand over to the builders. This allowed for the façade to be completed within a shorter timeframe".
Keeping connected
All elevators and escalators across the complex are equipped with Schindler Ahead, our remote monitoring and predictive maintenance platform. The Schindler Ahead suite of applications supports higher uptimes, while also keeping passengers connected to our Customer Care Centre.
"An efficient and seamless lift experience plays an important role in the guest experience for our voco hotel guests staying in the tower’s 201 rooms. Now that we have opened New Zealand’s highest hotel rooftop bar on Level 38, Bar Albert, having a quick and smooth ride from the ground to the top floor is paramount," said Fraser McKenzie, Area General Manager Pro-invest Hotels NZ.