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The Impacts of the Canterbury Earthquakes on the Commercial Office Market in Christchurch, New Zealand

Author/s: Sandy Bond, Zoltan Moricz, Craig Wong

Date Published: 1/01/2012

Published in: Volume 18 - 2012 Issue 4 (pages 389 - 405)

Abstract

The 22 February 2011 Canterbury earthquake had a devastating impact on Christchurch property with significant damage caused to land and buildings. The broad aims of the research were to examine the nature and extent of the CBD office relocation, determine occupier’s perceptions of the future: their location and space needs post the February earthquake and the likelihood of relocating back to the CBD after the rebuild. An online survey was developed with the web link and a covering letter emailed to 643 companies. A follow-up survey was sent out in January 2012 following the December 2011 earthquake event to determine if respondents’ location choices had changed. From the initial survey, 55% of respondents were relocated CBD occupiers and 45% were existing suburban office occupiers. Of the businesses that relocated out of the CBD the biggest group (38%) want to return to the CBD into low-rise buildings of 3 floors or less (80%) that meet earthquake codes with good amenities and public transport. The speed of rebuild is important to respondents. The follow up survey indicated that demand for the CBD has fallen since the initial survey. In terms of building grade preferences, the response from occupiers is that although higher quality Premium or A-Grade buildings are preferred, when taking into account likely rental levels, occupiers prefer lower quality new or existing buildings. The concern with new builds is that rentals are likely to be too high for tenants to afford which was illustrated by the gap analysis of respondent expectations of rents and the indicative market rentals that will need to be achieved to make the rebuild feasible.

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Keywords

Building Preferences - Canterbury Earthquake - Office Relocation

References