Future Growth

By the beginning of 2010, Smales Farm Technology Office Park was fully let and the Smales Farm directors and management turned their attention to a new phase of growth – continuing the Smales Farm philosophy of creating 'New Zealand's best place to work and do business.'

This entails not only continuing to develop Smales Farm Technology Office Park but also looking ahead...Smales Farm has stepped outside of the footprint of the Smales Farm Technology Office Park site and turned the focus on acquiring buildings of a sufficiently high standard that could fit the Smales Farm philosophy and vision of creating 'the best place to work and do business.'

For Smales Farm, 'best' means in terms of the quality of the workplace provided to tenants, the quality of the overall Smales Farm environment, the focus on sustainability and its favourable impact on lowering operational costs for tenants.

Green Star focus

A key part of achieving this vision is a focus on building quality. Any new buildings conceptualised for Smales Farm will use the New Zealand Green Building Council Green Star Rating system as a yardstick. Green Star was developed in partnership with the building industry and is a comprehensive, national, voluntary environmental rating scheme that evaluates the environmental attributes and performance of New Zealand's buildings using a suite of rating tool kits developed to be applicable to each building type and function.

New buildings currently conceptualised for the Northern area of Smales Farm Technology Office Park – will be designed to achieve a Five Star Green rating. This represents 'New Zealand Excellence' in green building architecture and engineering. The Five Star Green rating delivers the ultimate in tenant comfort with regard to temperature control, noise control, flexibility in space utilisation and extremely low operating expenses.

Long-term vision

"A major reason that Smales Farm has historically been relatively unaffected by economic downturns and the boom and bust economic cycles is that our development philosophy is based on quality and we think and invest with a very long-term horizon," Director Greg Smale says.

"All of our buildings have represented the state of the art in building quality when constructed, and this history of quality, durability and sustainability has been reflected in the type of tenants we have attracted – and kept for lease periods considerably longer than the industry average."

Smales Farm General Manager Daniel Henderson says this commitment to quality, along with the advantages of location, ample parking, proximity to the motorway, and direct access to the Smales Farm Station and the Northern Busway all contribute positively for any new developments.

"We are now actively talking with prospective anchor tenants, typically large organisations considering an alternative to long-term leasing in the CBD," he says.

"The bottom line for us is that Auckland is forecast to grow to exceed two million people by 2020. We have the vision, the time, the resources and the track record to be here for the long haul, delivering the best office environment to the best companies and organisations."

Smales Farm Technology Office Park
proposed building 5 (B5 & Building C)

The development of the Smales Farm Technology Office Park is an ongoing project and a number of further buildings will be constructed. Below are line drawings of two concept designed buildings known as B5 & Building C which show how a new 6000 sqm building or 13,000 sqm building may look at Smales Farm.

Proposed building B5

Proposed building C