When it comes to building corporate head offices, Atterbury Property Development has a great portfolio under its belt, with blue-chip clients such as PwC, Deloitte, Investec… and now also KPMG. We spoke to project manager Gerhard van der Westhuizen about this latest coup
The KPMG building is situated in Lynnwood. How does it impact when you are building a commercial property in a residential area?
A big development in a residential area always faces the challenge of working with the homeowners associations, as people are concerned about unusual activity near where they live and the impact it has on traffic, security and quality of life. So we had a very transparent process and kept the neighbours informed of the progress with regular meetings.
What were the biggest issues to work around?
We had to be considerate in sticking to the approved working hours; and if we required extra time or had to work through the night occasionally– as when floating the concrete – we had to get special permission from the homeowners association. Also with deliveries that sometimes had to happen outside of regular working hours. But we managed it carefully.
I believe the trees were a particular concern? Tell us more…
Yes, there were large mature trees with bush babies living in them, which residents didn’t want to lose. We also don’t like removing trees unnecessarily, and always try as far as possible to consider existing trees in our planning and develop around them. We went to a lot of trouble to preserve six of the iconic indigenous trees in the area. Notably there is one huge Paperbark tree right in front of where the building now stands, which cost us R270 000 in extra groundwork to preserve it! In the end we planted more trees than the ones we had no choice but to remove.
We also upgraded certain roads in the area to accommodate the extra traffic that is the result of the development.
Is there anything about the building or the project that is unusual?
It comes back to the trees again… because we were developing around the trees, we could not simply throw regular paving around the building, so we used special environmentally friendly paving blocks which will still allow the trees to grow.
What do you take as some of the learnings from this project?
It is evident today, more so than in the past, how important security measures are to tenants, so we gave that quite a bit of attention. It impacts on the security camera setups, the type of fencing, and also the access to different areas. Specifically with a client such as KPMG, whose business involves sensitive information, security measures are highlighted and need to be considered.
Did you manage to deliver the building in time?
Yes, it was tight, but we did it. Despite the fact that we were delayed by six weeks initially while waiting for some regulatory approvals, we caught up with a stiff programme. We were able to deliver to the client on 1 May this year to start their fitting, while we were still doing some finishing work. It was actually a very rewarding experience to work together with the client in the final months, as they really understood the construction process in the end, and we were working as a team to reach the end goal of having KPMG open for business on 1 August. That goal was achieved, and we are very proud of the end product. It’s a matter of association!
