Contact statement regarding a new engineering report on 139-141 Willis Street building

The safety of our people is and will always remain our number one priority.

Yesterday we received the executive summary of the draft engineering report on the ‘Tel Tower’ building (139-141 Willis Street), of which Contact is a tenant. Since receiving the revised engineering report we urgently met with consulting engineers Beca, the author of the report, to better understand the draft report's findings.

An earlier assessment of the building following the Seddon earthquakes determined that the building was rated at 71% of the new building standard. Yesterday’s draft report from Beca indicates that the stairs have some issues and, when these are fixed, the building will achieve around 80% of the New Building Standard (NBS). The stair issues downgrade the building rating to 40% of the NBS. Overall ratings for buildings are based on the lowest score.

After carefully considering the initial situation Contact will be seeking alternative office space for our team based on site in the New Year, however we will remain in the building in the short term. We are talking openly with our team on site and are enabling anyone concerned to work from an alternate location while we work through the options available.

The majority of Contact’s Wellington based employees are located in Harbour City Tower in Brandon St, where earthquake strengthening work was completed earlier this year to bring the building to in excess of 85% of new building standard. There is no impact to customers, who are served by Contact Centres based in Dunedin and Levin.

ENDS

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