Midland Gate Shopping Centre

This is a ~16,000m2 retail extension in Perth's East.

The project consisted of a 5-stage handover process in a fast-paced, rapidly changing retail environment.  

The project was documented, and the D&C Head Contractor appointed. DEM conducted risk reviews and consultants updated their documentation to address the issues raised.

DEM generated the project commissioning management plan and regular commissioning meetings were conducted. During the commissioning and planning process, we assisted in improving several items including those described below.

We identified issues with the proposed methodology of the gas and water remote billing and metering system. A new methodology was presented that protected the building owner, Vicinity, from potential future billing inaccuracies. It also reduced the head contractor and subcontractor's exposure to potential call-backs and ensured that the Green Star requirements were met.

We identified issues with the fire matrix, which only covered the new part of the centre, and advised the team on the process to provide an integrated, building-wide matrix. This will improve the future maintenance and management of the asset.

DEM wrote procedures for the testing regimes across all building services. This set the expectations with all contractors and ensured all parties understood what would happen during testing.

We identified handover issues relating to the staging of the chilled water plant and pipework commissioning. In response, the contracting team were able to accelerate the procurement of the AHUs and built-up plant rooms to prevent issues with underloading of chillers and potential low-flow issues during the staged handover.

DEM thoroughly tested the Coles generators and highlighted several issues with them including the ATS. Through the test regime the issues were rectified, and the generator set is now working correctly and reliably.

We instigated a number of due-diligence activities to ensure that the base build fire pumps were operating correctly. Several issues with the existing centre alarms were detected through the testing and Vicinity carried out further investigation and rectification in response.

DEM assisted the project manager, APP, in understanding the commissioning program and key dependencies. This ensured that the project program could be monitored effectively, and potential delays mitigated.

DEM conducted end-to-end testing of all life safety systems before handover. This involved the management of multiple contractors and the use of smoke bombs to test air patterns and prove the performance of the dry fire, electrical, mechanical and security systems. During the test, some function issues were detected and because the test was conducted well in advance of PC, these issues were comfortably rectified prior to occupation.

All five stages have now been commissioned and handed over successfully ahead of time in April 2019. Tuning phase finished in March 2020.