Murray and Currie
The office redevelopment for Murray and Currie is one of our largest projects to date. Very tight timescales were made apparent from the outset with only 10 weeks allowed for the complete project including design, planning, engineers structural drawings, architectural drawings, building warrants, sourcing and ordering materials (specified steel, glass etc.), gas supply into the building and physically renovating the property over two floors inside and out. We were approached by Murray & Currie and invited to tender for the renovation in October 2014. At this point Scotia Property Services LTD were already the preferred contractor for maintenance and services generated by the Murray & Curries managed properties.
The property at 60 Queen Street was previously Home to Hein Gericke (Motorcycle clothing retailer).
The first step for Scotia was to attend and survey the job with the client. Naturally it required several visits in order for the client to confirm as close as possible how they envisaged the completed project. Of course there were several aspects of the job that were left solely to the Scotia team to design and plan. The client required the job to be 100% completed and working as a serviceable office for the Murray & Currie team by January 6th 2015.
The property was generally in a very poor state of repair. On completion of the design/planning/building warrant stage the first priority was to ensure the building was water tight and secure. This meant repairs to the flat roof and security door replacements. The property also had a severe pest problem within the basement level. This was quickly and efficiently eradicated.
The layout of the property was drastically reconfigured which included removing structural walls in the lower level. These structural walls were baring the weight of the 4 stories above so it was imperative that the engineers structural steel specifications drawings were perfectly accurate. The huge pieces of steel were lifted into place and secured on removing the walls. Sections of walls were also removed in the upper lever to draw the light through to the rear of the office.
No heating system was present. Our team of Gas Safe engineers designed and planned the most efficient and cost effective system to install. A commercial gas supply was required to be brought into the property. This meant organising closing the road at North Castle Street whilst the new gas line was run to the building. Thereafter the engineers ran a completely new heating system throughout the entire premises.
The entire property was rewired using over 2 miles of cabling! The office was brought up to compliance in terms of electrical safety, emergency lighting and fire safety. A large amount of CAT 5 cabling was installed throughout with data points for all staff and additional wall mounted TVs. Track lighting was supplied and fitted over the majority of the upper level. The staff area, utility area and toilets had high efficiency spot lights supplied and fitted. The track lighting was continued throughout the lower levels.
The general finish of the building is to a high standard. Skirting, facings, cills, doors and timbers throughout were handmade using a combination real woods and mouldings. A large amount of made to suit safety glass was installed throughout creating the lovely stairway focal point on the top level as well as the director’s room and the boardroom on the basement level.
A secure lockable key room was formed on the upper level. The key room was designed and built to accommodate over 2000 keys! This meant the installation of 2000 key hooks… A thankless task!
The floors throughout the basement level were thoroughly screeded to provide a perfectly level surface. The floors throughout the upper level were sheeted with WPB (moisture resistant Plywood) to provide a perfectly level substrate throughout. The carpet finishes were very particular. The recognisable Murray & Currie purple was requested. Scotia were able to source this purple exactly and supplied and fitted the hard wearing carpet tiles throughout a portion of the basement level and upper utility area. The remaining areas were carpeted using a designer outdoor carpet. The idea being that it would stand up to a large level of traffic. It was also appropriate to bleach clean this carpet. The floor finishes in the utility/toilets area were Altro flooring (hard-wearing commercial flooring- sealed).
The decoration and general wall and ceiling finishes were extensive. The fresh plaster throughout required to be sealed and triple coated on all walls and ceilings. The feature wall on the upper level was decorated in an ‘Edinburgh map’ style wallpaper – again in purple. The repairs and decoration required on the outside ‘shop-front’ was again a very thorough laborious process. The finished colour requested by the client was an off-white named ‘pointing’. Naturally taking the finish from gloss black to flat white meant many, many coats!
The Scotia Property Services team worked very hard over the course of the project with the deadline in mind. As is common with large projects there were some changes to the plan made by the client throughout the course of the works which added to the workload. Regardless team succeeded in opening the new 60 Queen Street Murray&Currie office on the morning of January 6th.