Coolbellup Neighbourhood Centre
The Coolbellup Town Centre Local Structure Plan will ultimately see the redevelopment of the Coolbellup Town Centre to a mixture of commercial, retail and residential land uses.
The Coolbellup Neighbourhood Centre, located on the site of the Coolbellup Hotel, is the first stage of the redevelopment and involved construction of a 3,000m2 supermarket and four specialty tenancies.
The Anchor Tenant for the supermarket was Woolworths who have specific requirements for their stores and facilities.
JDSi were engaged to undertake the design of perimeter road upgrades, carpark and drainage. In addition, JDSi was also appointed as Superintendent for the building construction contract.
With approximately 5m of fall across the site, developing an economical earthworks design was challenging due to the building footprint being so large and carpark grades being restricted to below 2 percent as per Anchor Tenant requirements. To minimise the amount of imported fill required, negotiations were held with Water Corporation to allow lowering of verge levels over an existing water main and developing a construction methodology to ensure the pipe remained protected at all times.
Woolworths continually review their operations Nationally and update their specifications to reflect best practice in the design and function of their stores. As a result, there were ongoing design changes which needed to be coordinated through the Consultant Team, issued to the Builder and costs carefully documented to enable recovery by the Client where applicable.
Woolworths will not open a new store in their “blackout” period of December through to the start of February. The proposed handover date for the Centre of 23 November was achieved through continually monitoring progress against the program with the Builder and, where necessary, rescheduling or accelerating construction activities to minimise or offset potential delays.
