Bassendean Shopping Centre

Project snapshot

Initially 7,688sqm, Bassendean Shopping Centre was expanded to approximately 9,845sqm by increasing the floor size of the existing Coles Supermarket by approximately 1,000sqm, introducing The Reject Shop, Liquorland and Dome Cafe as well as other new tenancies. Other works encompassed installing a new travelator, adding a children’s playground, undertaking major fire safety improvements and upgrading the existing car parks.

We won the project via a competitive tender process.

Overcoming challenges

• A major challenge that posed continual difficulties was the requirement to complete the redevelopment within a ‘live’ shopping centre environment. The primary consideration in successfully overcoming this obstacle was public safety – work could only take place overnight in operational shopping areas, with the PACT team working dual day and night shifts to address the challenge. Educational sessions were also held with subcontractors to ensure they respected the public nature of the worksite, from carefully planning lead placements to avoiding the use of bad language. Local residents surrounding the centre were also considered, which diminished the window of opportunity for loud construction work such as drilling and concrete pours out of normal working hours.
• The relentless nature of retail operations meant new tenants were moving in as the centre expanded. As such, the redevelopment project had rolling completion dates. This staged project completion required precision project management to meet continual deadlines and handovers.

Highlights

• One of the unique finishes we coordinated was the relocation of an historic train into the new Dome Cafe. This involved a large number of coordination meetings with the tenant given the historical value of the train and the weight of the locomotive on the slab. We were involved in lengthy coordination meetings with several stakeholders including Rail Heritage WA, Dome Café, Hawaiian Property, Wood & Grieve Engineers and Hames Sharley.
• As the project was spread over such a large working area and working 24 hours a day, four Site Managers were needed, with each allocated an area of the site.
• Demolition of the existing mall ceilings resulted in large amounts of dust and debris. To combat this, we decided to complete all of these works at night, starting at around 10:00 pm and stopping at 4:00 AM. A cleaning team would then come in immediately after to dust and completely clean the shopping centre prior to opening each morning.

Features of THE development

External finishes focused on Australian architectural elements and materials common to the surrounding Bassendean area, including: 

• Feature LVL timber beams.
• Precast decorative panels.
• Bisschops Ultra CFC cladding.
• Metal roof sheeting for vertical cladding.
• Spotted gum timber cladding to structural columns.
• Galvanised trellises for vertical landscaping.

Internal finishes included:

• LED lighting strips in the southern and northern mall.
• Highlight windows to the southern mall to increase natural light throughout the centre.
• Feature veneer timber beams.
• Feature veneer paneling.
• Removal of existing floor vinyl and installation of over 2500m² of new stone tiling, all of which was carried out after hours.
• New children’s playground.

Civil works included:

• Major upgrade to existing car parks.
• New paved access routes.
• New retaining wall to create two distinctive levels to the shopping centre.
• New storm water and sewer connections and extensions.
• New irrigation and landscaping to the entire centre.