Holmes returning to its Christchurch home

12 April 2016

Holmes returning to its Christchurch home

Engineering firm Holmes recently returned home to the central city.

Based in Cambridge Terrace near Montreal Street prior to the earthquakes, the company has now returned to brand new, purpose-built, offices on the corner of Cashel and Montreal streets—literally over the back fence from the old site.

Richard Seville, Business Manager for Holmes Consulting Group in Christchurch, said that it was inspiring to work on your own offices in a familiar part of the city.

“It’s exciting creating your own building, being your own client. We wanted to showcase our structural engineering skills so we have an open floor plan, no internal columns, exposed bracing and precast concrete beams.”

The new office houses Holmes Consulting Group (structural and civil engineering), Holmes Fire (fire engineering) and Holmes Solutions (research, development and testing).

“There is certainly a buzz right across Holmes as Holmes Fire and Holmes Solutions have also been involved in creating a robust, resilient building with the right atmosphere and environment for the work we do,” he said.

Established 60 years ago, Holmes has five offices in New Zealand, with international offices in Australia, the Netherlands and the USA. Staff numbers have doubled in Christchurch since the earthquakes.

Recent projects in Christchurch include: New Acute Services Building at Christchurch Hospital site (under construction), Arts Centre earthquake repair and strengthening, Hagley Pavilion, Transitional Cathedral, Justice and Emergency Precinct (under construction), Stranges building, Christ’s College, Saint Andrews College, the New Education Building at the University of Canterbury (under construction), new schools for Rolleston and Aranui and the Isaac Theatre Royal.

John Hare, CEO, Holmes Group, said that having so many different people throughout the group involved in the design and testing of the new offices created real excitement.

“We are settling in to our brand new Holmes office back in the centre of the city. It’s great to see the CBD taking shape with people and businesses returning to other recently finished office buildings. We always knew we would be back and this is part of our commitment to Christchurch, where the company began.”

“The next few years are going to be really exciting with offices, entertainment and retail moving back into the city alongside continuing construction. While a lot of great work has already been done there is still much to be completed with several of the large projects not yet started. It’ll be a very lively and inspiring place to work,” he said.

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