Super yacht mast makers set sail for Avondale

The world’s leading mast makers, Southern Spars, have moved premises to a dedicated factory in West Auckland which becomes the company’s new international headquarters

Construction is now completed on the $17 million custom designed factory in which Southern Spars has taken up a 12 year lease. The building sits on a 1.5 hectare section of a major subdivision totalling 10 hectares off Rosebank Road in Avondale.

The design sees the mast assembly hall freed entirely of columns to allow masts up to 70m to be moved across the factory floor without impediment. The state of the art manufacturing facility comprises an 8,000 m2/12 metre high stud warehouse and 1,250m2 of office space. 

Southern Spars Chief Executive David Glen is unequivocal that the new premises will significantly benefit the organisation and allow them to further hone their key competencies.

“Until recently, Southern Spars has managed production between factories in the Auckland City Viaduct, Pakuranga and the North Shore. To amalgamate four factories across our three locations and bring the company’s entire Auckland operations of over 200 staff together in one central location makes good sense both financially and logistically,” says Glen.

“The move will give rise to significant efficiencies, help to lower our costs and allow us to implement new technologies which will improve the process by which we build our mast packages. This will enable Southern Spars to deliver the same world class spars packages to our clients on tighter deadlines,” he says.

Development of the site was undertaken by a joint venture between commercial property company McDougall Reidy and Haydn & Rollett Construction, with Direct Property Fund (DPF) acquiring the premises into its portfolio.

McDougall Reidy Managing Director Greg Reidy sees the move into West Auckland as a particularly good one for the yachting manufacturers.

“West Auckland is an area of growth, particularly in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Organisations like Southern Spars will have a strong local workforce to draw from, are not as inhibited by the price of taking space within Auckland City and, with the Central Motorway Junction and Western Ring Route motorway upgrades, are now well connected to the north, central and south of Auckland,” says Reidy.

The acquisition of this property takes DPF’s current portfolio to $387 million.