32 Mann Street South

32 Mann Street, near corner of Georgiana Terrace, 24th March 2018

This is a government building site, on the grounds of the demolished 1940's primary school. A snippet about it from its website:

"a mid-rise commercial building with a mixed use ground floor that supports retail uses [and] will accommodate 300+ positions from the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation (DFSI). It delivers on the Government’s 2015 election commitment and forms part of the Government’s Decade of Decentralisation Policy." (properties.nsw.gov.au/our-projects)

Sign on building site at 32 Mann Street Gosford, 24th March 2018

I think, counting floors and comparing them to the sign, construction might be nearly finished. But there will still be all the interior work to be finished after that.

South Mann Street, Brisbane Water & Kariong Ridge, 24th March 2018

Kariong Ridge in the background, the 32 Mann Street site crane transporting a load onto the site, the railway bridge to the left of the 32 Mann Street site with Fagans Bay behind it and Brisbane Water in front of it, and the Pinnacle site along the bottom edge of the photo.

32 Mann Street site & Kariong Ridge, 24th March 2018

Plenty of workers hard at it on a warm autumn Saturday afternoon. Kariong ridge in the background.

Maximum zoom at 32 Mann Street, 24th March 2018

It's after midnight on Sunday night and I can't work out what work is being done here. Clue me in, gentlemen.


 No Activity

No activity at this Mann Street South site, 24th March 2018

This Mann Street site, between the police station and the Telstra building, still lays idle. But I'm sure it will suddenly spring to life soon and give me more photos to take.


 Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford

For the last couple of weeks I've been putting out the call for local tradies to email me their work contact details and what sort of work they do for a free listing on this website and, when I get the time to add to it again, on my other site: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

And I've just realised I left out a whole slab of local contractors and businesses and suppliers and carters and makers and growers by just calling for tradies. So any locally owned business or any local maker or grower can send me their work contact details and a bit about their work or business or agri-business. Tell me as much as you can and I'll edit it down so everyone gets around the same amount of screen space as everyone else.

It's FREE but it's for small and medium sized LOCALS ONLY. None with ownership outside the NSW Central Coast and its hinterland suppliers.

Lynn Avenue Point Frederick

A busy Saturday morning in Lynn Avenue Pt Frederic, 24th March 2018

A busy Saturday morning in the sun on the 2nd Lynn Avenue site. (The 1st one, another apartment tower, was finished a few months ago.)

Coffee & consultation on the job, 24th March 2018

Coffee and consultation up on the top of the site.

Re-bars & plumbing pipes in the sun, 24th March 2018

Hot sun on the re-bars and what looks like white PVC plumbing pipes coming up from below.

Deciding what to do next at the top of the site, 24th March 2018

Sorting out what the next step will be at the top of the site, with another 50 - 60 year old building in the background, immediately to the left of the site.

Possible lift & stairwell structures, 24th March 2018

These 2 vertical structures look to me like the lift shaft (left) and the fire stairs. Am I right, gentlemen?

In the background on the right, we can see the 1950's house to the right of this site. When it was built, the 2-storey yacht clubhouse would not have been there and the house may have had the sort of view down the length of the Brisbane Water the upper half of this building will have. The bottom half will have the advantage of being a mere 30 seconds walk from the yacht club and the Gosford foreshore and a mere 10 minutes walk from Mann Street's shops and eateries.

Whole Lynn Avenue site, 24th March 2018

This site is another hard one to get clear photos of. It's halfway along a narrow street. I had to stand right back against the site office to take this photo.

Lynn Avenue site office, 24th March 2018

Someone's garage is housing the site office. There's certainly no room for it (the office) on the building site.

 Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford

For the last couple of weeks I've been putting out the call for local tradies to email me their work contact details and what sort of work they do for a free listing on this website and, when I get the time to add to it again, on my other site: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

And I've just realised I left out a whole slab of local contractors and businesses and suppliers and carters and makers and growers by just calling for tradies. So any locally owned business or any local maker or grower can send me their work contact details and a bit about their work or business or agri-business. Tell me as much as you can and I'll edit it down so everyone gets around the same amount of screen space as everyone else.

It's FREE but it's for small and medium sized LOCALS ONLY. None with ownership outside the NSW Central Coast and its hinterland suppliers.

Beane Street East

Beane Street East site, 24th March 2018

The apartment building site on the corner of Beane Street East and Hills Street. This site, like Grand Horizon seen here behind it, are a short 10 minutes walk from the railway station and an even shorter 5 minutes walk to the shopping centre on Gosford's main street: Mann Street. It's a small town, even though it's getting taller.

Grand Horizon on Hills Street, 24th March 2018

The Grand Horizon building has its hordings off the bottom of the facade at last and it looks like only the apartments on the very right end need to be finished.

View from corner Beane Street East & Hills Street, 24th March 2018

The view north and north-west from the Beane Street/Hills Street site to North Gosford, Narara and Palm Grove.


 Extra

The view south from Grand Horizon on Hills Street, 24th March 2018

A little old cottage around 80 - 100 years old on the left of this photo, on the corner of Bent Street (which is straight). At the end of the street down the middle of the photo (Hills Street) we can see the Imperial Centre shopping centre, at March 2018 Gosford's only shopping centre. Behind it, the 1970's apartment tower at the southern end of Mann Street and, closer to us, the Gosford branch of the Central Coast Council, also a 1970's building.

The taller crane is the closer one, on the Bonython Tower AKA "Singo's tower" site. Grand Horizon's sister building on the right edge of the photo and, in the distance, the ridge above Point Clare, Tascott and Koolewong and then, most distant, the ridge along the back of Umina on the Woy Woy Peninsula.


 Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford

For the last couple of weeks I've been putting out the call for local tradies to email me their work contact details and what sort of work they do for a free listing on this website and, when I get the time to add to it again, on my other site: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

And I've just realised I left out a whole slab of local contractors and businesses and suppliers and carters and makers and growers by just calling for tradies. So any locally owned business or any local maker or grower can send me their work contact details and a bit about their work or business or agri-business. Tell me as much as you can and I'll edit it down so everyone gets around the same amount of screen space as everyone else.

It's FREE but it's for small and medium sized LOCALS ONLY. None with ownership outside the NSW Central Coast and its hinterland suppliers.

Kendall Street

 Icon
 

It's a long time since I've been able to get clear photos of the workers on this site. I like those photos the best but, due to the lovely big trees lining the other side of this road, I can't get an angle down onto the top of the site from anywhere.

Together with Hargraves Street, this is the most difficult site in the Gosford area to photograph. But it's a pretty fast-moving site and will be finished quite soon and I'll get some nice snaps of the exterior painters and landscapers and the plants and tables going in on the balconies as the first residents move in.

All photos on this page taken on the 17th of March 2018. Trial and error have proven there's nothing I can do about any strange gaps, changing fonts/typefaces, etc. It's dodgy code.

Inside work has begun on the Icon building site, with windows and doors going in to make it weatherproof and ready to be fitted out with fixtures and, eventually, furnishings.

Gentlemen, with so few opportunitis left to me for shots of you at work on this site, I hope to photogrpah you working on another local site soon. Meanwhile, I'll get what photos I can until that final tools down on this site.


 Vue 

My camera and I arrived at this site at smoko so there was a lull in activity on the site but the gates were open, the helmets were on and it was a hot Saturday morning of hard construction work.

A good sturdy cage made of lots of anchors tying the wall into the hillside behind it, lots of re-inforced concrete facing and, behind that, close-packed re-inforced concrete pylons going down into the earth.

The garage level for the residents' cars is to be poured very soon, as soon as that rocky ground it will sit on has been tamed to the last inch.

The slope on this site, before digging was begun, was on a par with the slope on the Wilhelmina Street site in West Gosford. The steepest site prize still goes to the Hargraves Street site (just along the road from these two Kendall Street sites. The site with the biggest hole to be dug is still held by the Wilhelmina Street site, 'Harbour View'. But the site with the biggest boulders to be dug out definitely goes to 'Vue' in Kendall Street.


 Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford

For the last couple of weeks I've been putting out the call for local tradies to email me their work contact details and what sort of work they do for a free listing on this website and, when I get the time to add to it again, on my other site: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

And I've just realised I left out a whole slab of local contractors and businesses and makers and growers by just calling for tradies. So any locally owned business or any local maker or grower can send me their work contact details and a bit about their work or business or agri-business. Tell me as much as you can and I'll edit it down so everyone gets around the same amount of screen space as everyone else.

It's FREE but it's for small and medium sized LOCALS ONLY. None with ownership outside the NSW Central Coast and its hinterland suppliers.

West Gosford

 Aqua in St. George Street

 activity. This is one of the half dozen Central Real/Central Construct sites in and around Gosford and they can't all be going at once. Good crews are kept and moved from one finished site a company owns to the next site. This is the next site.

All photos on this page taken Saturday 17th of March 2018. Trial and error have proven there is nothing I can do about the strange gaps, changes in typeface/font, etc. found on this website.
 Batley Street

The Batley Street site from Donnison Street West. It looks like nothing's happening on this sunny Saturday morning (17th March 2018) but I could hear a power-saw screeching and workers were moving about further back in the building.

The final product will be a 6 storey apartment building 10 minutes walk from Gosford station, Mann Street and downtown Gosford.

I usually take all clear photos but I was having a bad morning.

In this photo, despite the blurring, we can see what looks like plumbing going up through the floors of the building.

One of those materials decks the Batley Street site has had for a couple of months now. This site has a very small area around it for stacking up materials so these look ideal for work on the inside of the building.

Extensive views to be had from the finished apartments of 'Harbour View' and the Batley Street building. From left to right: Green Point, Hardys Bay, Blackwall Mountain (behind 1st tall tree) Saratoga (obscured by tall middle tree) Woy Woy and Mount Ettalong, Commodore Heights (most distant) Point Clare and, closest in the right of the photo, Fagans Bay. Not a bad view from the breakfast table.


 Wilhelmina Street's 'Harbour View' building

All hands on deck for another concrete pour.

Pouring arm stretching up and over.

The trouble shooter sitting waiting for trouble, that is, if there's a clog in the chute the concrete flows through to get from the truck to the arm.

Making ready to pour another wall on the other side of the site.

This would have been a great photo if my arm wasn't tired. Thanks for the pose anyway.


 Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford

For the last couple of weeks I've been putting out the call for local tradies to email me their work contact details and what sort of work they do for a free listing on this website and, when I get the time to add to it again, on my other site: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

And I've just realised I left out a whole slab of local contractors and businesses and makers and growers by just calling for tradies. So any locally owned business or any local maker or grower can send me their work contact details and a bit about their work or business or agri-business. Tell me as much as you can and I'll edit it down so everyone gets around the same amount of screen space as everyone else.

It's FREE but it's for small and medium sized LOCALS ONLY. None with ownership outside the NSW Central Coast and its hinterland suppliers.

Singo's tower AKA Bonython Tower

All photos on this page taken Saturday 17th of March 2018.

The residential tower clad in blue, the Mann Street frontage in the red circle.

The Bonython Tower site, Singo's tower, from Showground Road, right next to the railway station.

There was a much better photo to be had from this photo spot about a week ago. It would have shown a clear shot of the workers preparing for a concrete pour but I missed the narrow window of opportunity for that photo. Only the crane operator and passing aircraft will get that view from now on, now the tower's so high.

It was not very long ago, perhaps only a month ago, that I was taking my photos from the rooftop carpark of the Imperial shopping centre and looking straight across to the workers at the same level. The 3 floors after that have gone up so quickly. Another couple of months and the construction crew will have done their bit and will be moving on to the next building site, wherever that may be.

Part of the reason they're getting the floors up so fast now is that there's little variation in the floors of the residential tower, whereas each floor below it was different and was wider and longer too.

This is the first time I've seen one of these decks on the Bonython Tower site. The Batley Road site, on the corner of Donnison Street East in West Gosford, has had them for a couple of months.

They look very handy for holding smaller materials for those working on the insides of buildings. I noticed work starting on the inside of the Bonython Tower on the 7th of March, when the blue mesh came off the Mann Street front of the building.

What's been going on inside the lower floors since the blue mesh came off the Mann Street frontage. The ground floor, this one we see here, is the restaurant level. Above it an office level and above it, immediately below the residential tower, is the residents' carpark level. Access to the carpark will be through Paul Lane, at the back of the site, and via a car-carrying elevator.

This site has become very hard to photograph since the residential tower started to rise and it will only get harder to photograph. That means very few more opportunities to photograph anyone but the scaffold-builder at work. I'll miss all those great photos of fluoro work shirts against the grey concrete and Gosford's blue skies. It's been great photographing you, gentlemen, and I hope to see some of you on other local sites soon, including Elysium at Terrigal. Meanwhile, I'll keep snapping away at the Singo tower until you've topped out and then until the fitters-out have finished inside and the residents move in.

 Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford

For the last couple of weeks I've been putting out the call for local tradies to email me their work contact details and what sort of work they do for a free listing on this website and, when I get the time to add to it again, on my other site: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

And I've just realised I left out a whole slab of local contractors and businesses and makers and growers by just calling for tradies. So any locally owned business or any local maker or grower can send me their work contact details and a bit about their work or business or agri-business. Tell me as much as you can and I'll edit it down so everyone gets around the same amount of screen space as everyone else.

It's FREE but it's for small and medium sized LOCALS ONLY. None with ownership outside the NSW Central Coast and its hinterland suppliers.

Kendall Street Gosford

 Icon 

The Icon site in Kendall Street still powering ahead, 12th March 2018

The Icon site had 5 floors on the 28th of February 2018 and now has 6 floors. Frankly, with the crowding in this street, a narrow old street with a steep drop-away on the Gosford side, I'm surprised work on Icon and Vue goes ahead as fast and steadily as it does.

Today there's no photo of deliveries and workers at the other end of this site, due to an access issue at the time.

 Vue

Crane footings locked in on the Vue site, 12th March 2018

Crane footings locked and loaded and ready for the crane that will lift the big loads materials into this site. When it’s up, this crane will make two cranes, one on each site, in this quite short street on the hillside on the west side of the small narrow town that is Gosford. Things are changing so fast in our little town.

Lighter spoil being removed at the front of the site, 12th March 2018

The lighter loads of spoil, the ones with the smaller rocks, still being loaded into dump trucks at the front of the site. I was passed by 4 dump trucks leaving the site in the 5 minutes it took me to walk to it.

Digging down at the back of the site, 12th March 2018

At the back of the site, there was a deep juddering noise as this earthmover scraped into the ground with its teeth to break it up. Spending all day in the cab of this earthmover, with that juddering a part of the job, must be very wearing and I don't imagine it's much fun for anyone else on or near the site. I was very glad to get away from it.

Big boulders being loaded into a dump truck, 12th March 2018

And what was in that ground at the back was some very big rocks. The driver for the lighter spoil stayed in his cab during loading. But this driver very wisely got out. From where I stood, I could see the massive impact of each big rock dropping into the tray of the truck.

 Extra

I am slowly but surely putting together a list of all the locally owned businesses and locally made goods on the NSW Central Coast. Listings are free and will go online, on this website and on Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

By 'locally' I mean living locally, on the NSW Central Coast, if you are a tradie or business owner and made locally if you are supplying goods and/or services.

If you are a local tradie, local business owner, or supplier of locally made goods, please email me your business contact details to be included in my free listings. The only catch is that it's for LOCALS ONLY.

 Extra extra

Showground Road demolition has begun, 12th March 2018

Demolition starting on the two old houses opposite the railway station on Showground Road. The house under demolition is partly obscured by the palm tree. The station can be seen along the bottom half of this photo.

This site now being active makes 10 active building sites in the 5 minute drive from Fielder Street in West Gosford to Lynn Avenue in Point Frederick.

I’m going to get busier and busier with each new site. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be working out a new schedule of taking the photos and then putting them up on this website.

And, for the second time today, my apologies for any strange gaps, under-sized type, changing fonts/typefaces and anything else that turns up. Blooger/blogspot code is once again misbehaving.