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Haigh Workman has the privilege of being the lead consultant in the development of Arvida’s Te Puna Waiora Retirement Village in Kerikeri. This Auckland-based, publicly-listed retirement living provider wanted to work with a local engineering firm to help realise its ambitions for a high-quality retirement village in the Mid North.

Our involvement in this decade-long project started in 2017 at the pre-purchase stage, with a site ‘walk-over’ with our client to assess the general suitability of the site. Any developer can obtain significant value by bringing an engineering company in at the very earliest stages of the project to assess aspects such as the availability of suitable infrastructure and the phasing of any geotechnical engineering work that might be necessary.

As with any land development, the timing of this project was key. Kerikeri’s expanded wastewater treatment plant was under construction and, for the first time, a significant tranche of land that could be serviced by this enlarged facility was becoming available. We were able to use this local knowledge to help Arvida assess its options.

It’s always a pleasure to work with a client who is willing to be guided on aspects of its development and Arvida is one such. We were involved in the project master-planning and were able to coordinate early in the process with other experts who were key to the project’s success; architects, landscape architects, noise and acoustics experts, planners and community engagement facilitators, to name just a few.

We’ve had the pleasure of being involved with this project from design to the completion of various stages of construction, and then handover. It’s been a challenging yet incredibly satisfying piece of work. At Te Puna Waiora we’ve done everything that could possibly fit under the engineering banner: roading and traffic, civil works and infrastructure engineering, geotech, site design, structural design, environmental engineering relating to stormwater management and wastewater design, remediation of contaminated land (it was a HAIL site), and construction monitoring.

Social procurement has been an important feature of our project management. As lead consultant we’ve been responsible for delivering to Arvida a turn-key solution and this has involved local procurement; engaging, managing and – where necessary – upskilling a team of contractors based entirely in Northland. On any day there are as many as 100 contractors on site.

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Arvida | Te Puna Waiora

About the
Professional

Haigh Workman Ltd is full-service engineering consultancy with offices in North Auckland and Northland. Our expertise spans all elements of civil, structural, geotechnical and environmental engineering.

We’ve been engineering for Northland for nearly half a century and offer clients a strong team of leading New Zealand consulting engineers with a comprehensive range of skills. They bring specialist expertise, providing creative and quality engineering solutions – regardless of the challenge.

We’re 100 percent Northland-owned and operated, and our growth and success is due in large part to the continued and growing support of our local customer base.

It’s also due, of course, to the proven expertise of our team. All of our engineers, geologists and technicians are hand-picked – not only as experts in their fields, but also for their proven career focus on project delivery and customer support. In plain language: ‘getting stuff done’.

We offer comprehensive project management services. Whether you require stand-alone project management or seamless integration with Haigh Workman design and engineering services, we have the expertise to meet your needs. Our project management services are delivered by experienced project managers with a wide range of experience, both in New Zealand and internationally.

Local procurement is becoming an ever-more important topic as central and local government increasingly seek to make project funding contingent on the involvement of smaller, locally- or Māori-owned businesses in the delivery of the project.

Aspects of this wellbeing procurement approach can be challenging for project owners though. Our team can help you navigate these requirements – both on an individual project basis and as part of an ongoing strategy of community development and engagement. We believe this capability is not yet commonly offered in civil engineering in NZ.

For our own part, we make a point of buying local; working with local, Northland sub-contractors on our engineering projects wherever we possibly can. For us this is an important aspect of our own investment in the communities where our talented people and their families live, work and play.