The Victoria Lane Apartments are the fourth stage of the Cuba Precinct redevelopment in downtown Wellington, following on from Te Auaha, the Farmers Building and the Victoria Lane Carpark.

Victoria Lane is the city’s first base-isolated apartment development, which means it has a similar seismic resilience to key strategic buildings such as Wellington Hospital and Te Papa. All the main services’ connections have seismic joints that allow movement of around 600mm in either direction in an earthquake. The base isolation will significantly reduce the experience of an earthquake for occupants of the building. Dedicated fire and water storage tanks are installed in the basement.

Apartments in the 16-level building enjoy excellent natural light and great views across the city and harbour. The 123 apartments are typically 1-3 bedrooms and include tiled bathrooms, engineered timber flooring and stone benchtops, with some having balconies. Victoria Lane also has lobbies and retail tenancies on the ground floor, office space on levels 1 to 3, and penthouses on the top floors.

LTM provided Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) services throughout the concept and design phases of all four stages of the Cuba Precinct redevelopment. Despite Covid and its impact on staffing levels and supply lines, all stages completed to date have been delivered on time and within budget.

3D Programming was used to help with the structural sequencing across the different stages and at Victoria Lane it helped to develop a temporary works plan. Another innovation was extensive off-site fabrication. For instance, the steel stud walls were delivered pre-cut and pre-punched for fixings to the correct size. Their on-site assembly drastically reduced material wastage and installation time.

The fifth and final stage of the Cuba Precinct development will be a new commercial building on the corner of Victoria and Dixon streets.