Investigation

When Mainzeal collapsed, it was apparent both to me and others that the whole thing was as dodgy as hell.

The people who paid for that corporate disaster were contractors and small players to whom Mainzeal owed money. I know of one small business that lost $500k. (While Jenny Shipley lost $0-00c) To a small business, half a million bucks is an enormous sum, and represented a lifetime's work for the owners. Gone in a flash.

And the ramifications are still being felt.

Much was made of New Zealand's "greenest" building when it opened, but if I were handing out the stickers, I'd be checking to see whether performance matches the design, because the building has been an unmitigated disaster right from the day Mainzeal agreed to build it.

The much-vaunted parking stacker was so badly built and designed it had to undergo extensive modification on its arrival from China, then things started to get really ugly.

The machine itself may have worked ok, but nobody with any real-world experience had input until far too late.

The classic example is the bays - think pigeon-holed desk x the size of cars - required the car to be slid on steel castors into its slot. Given the average car weighing a tonne, it would have been blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that if you run steel castors bearing loads of 250 kg +, your concrete will not be long for this world. Taking into account the number of tradesmen, supervisors, project managers, engineers and experts were involved in the project, I am still unable to fathom how such a glaring cock-up could have been missed! No matter, it was.

The building, as noted in the link above, is Michael Friedlander, a very, very rich man.

The car-stacker clearly had to be fixed - it was falling to bits, and was starting to impact on the building.

Simple: refurbish and renovate.

When the project to do that was commenced in late 2014, a completion date of March 2015 was confidently set.

One of the very first workers on the project remarked that the completion date was a pipe-dream. And so it proved to be, with the project finally, eventually, al long last, being completed on the weekend just gone.

How much the project has cost over the entire 4 years of the building's life to date, I have no idea, but it clearly runs into millions of dollars. Between $2 and $6 million would be my guess, but I am just guessing.

Who pays that bill?

You can be sure that Michael Friedlander, who pays the actual cheque, will not ultimately pay, because he will adjust his rentals up to compensate for it. It may take him a few years, but he will assuredly get every cent back. That's why he's on the rich list and you aren't.

The people he passes the cost onto will be either residential or commercial tenants. He will also be claiming 33% of any direct costs against his taxable profit, so the government - i.e. taxpayers - are funding a third of it to start. The residential tenants are already consumers and the commercial tenants will pass their costs on to their consumers. In the end, it will be you and me who pay.

As usual.

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