The northern Sydney suburb of Ryde is well on its way to getting a new town centre. Known as Top Ryde City, the new development features 80,000 square metres of retail space, commercial space and residential apartments above the shopping precinct.

Optimus Construction Manager Mark Crossingham said it was a huge project that began in September 2007, when Bovis Lend Lease was contracted to project manager, design and build the first stage of the development.

“The old shopping centre, which had past its lifecycle date and required a major upgrade, was demolished by February 2008,” Mark said. “In its place will be four levels of retail with 200 specialty stores and major chains Myer, Big W, Woolworths, Aldi and Franklins. A further two levels are dedicated to lifestyle with cinemas, a library, child care facilities and gym. Three levels of basement car-parking will service the complex.”

Optimus were contracted to provide mechanical services for the project and dedicated a major project team comprising three project managers, three engineers, one site manager and two site supervisors to the project. At its peak they had an additional 32 sheetmetal workers, 16 plumbers, 10 laggers and 15 electricians working at Ryde.

“For a project of that size we needed to have suppliers that we were confident could supply product on time and to budgetary constraints,” Mark said. “Fantech has been a favourable supplier to Optimus for the past 15 or so years and we knew they could deliver the large amount of equipment needed.”

There has been a series of handover dates, and in November 2009 Stage 1 was opened. To gain occupancy the centre required 38 air handling units and fan coil systems, 19 stair pressurisation systems, 39 miscellaneous exhaust systems, 7 car park exhaust fan systems, 9 smoke exhaust systems, 11 car park supply systems, 2 tunnel exhaust systems and 2 kitchen exhaust systems to be operational.

“Co-ordination with other services (electrical, hydraulics, structural) has been a major challenge,” he said. “For example, installation of the central energy plant was hampered by structural constraints and took 8 weeks. Other plant equipment including the essential systems, cooling towers and an air cooled chiller for the majors, need to be temporarily installed and moved to a final position once the structure is finished.”

Stage 2 of the development opened on 20 February 2010 followed by Stage 2a,b on 16 March. The final opening is due in August 2010.