24 | Robinson Asphalts: Bupa Tōtara Gardens Retirement Village T T Virginia Wright Village enjoys award-winning transformation The Bupa Tōtara Gardens Retirement Village development showcases the breadth of Robinson’s capability, particularly in the work they did around its main Care Centre. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT It’s a family-owned and -operated business now into its third generation of ownership having first been established by Peter and Joan Robinson in 1972. The current General Manager, Cole Johnston, is their grandson. He joined his parents, Annie and Alan Johnston, in the business as Covid took hold around the country in 2020, initially dealing primarily with Health & Safety. As the second generation, Annie and Alan purchased the business in 1992. Now Cole and his brother, Sam, along with two others, Tom Taylor and Sam Cowan, are in the process of buying them out as the next generation of owners. Experts in asphalt, as their name suggests, they are also professionals in all aspects of site and property development, explains Cole. “We do everything under one roof; for a building we can do everything underneath and outside the building, from services and earthworks, all the way through to finished landscaping, pathways, planting and sculptures.” A recent award-winning project they completed as part of the Bupa Tōtara Gardens Retirement Village development showcases a number of those skills across the breadth of Robinson’s capability, particularly in the work they did around its main Care Centre. “It began as a $360,000 package to do some hard landscaping around the development’s main entrance, but they must have liked what we did, and they were a great client to work fo,” says Cole. “One thing led to the next and we spent three and a half years up there doing more than $3.3mn worth of work directly for Bupa. “We did a further $1.8m for ARCO Group over a couple of key stages of the Care Centre and worked right through until the village itself was completed.” Being on site, and with their strong track record and pre-existing relationships, Robinsons were the obvious choice to do the work as the development of the retirement village progressed. They juggled resources to absorb the work as it came up, including the landscaping around many of its 60 individual villas, from driveways to patios to planting. They took care of everything outside the building itself. They worked through several different stages of the Care Centre, doing the detailed earthworks enabling the buildings to go up, putting services in the ground, building retaining walls, concrete works, hard and soft landscaping including pergolas, fencing, planting and decorative exterior timber work, all the way through to building the community vegetable gardens. As the scope of work expanded it became a showcase project for Robinsons, clearly demonstrating the extent of their skills which extend well beyond civil to technical landscaping and timber work. Over the three and a half years they had several builders there doing some impressively detailed work around the exterior of the Care Centre including the entrance and the main courtyard. Despite the size of the project, with all the third-party consultants and various sub-contractors involved to bring it together, it was a successful collaborative effort for which Cole gives a lot of the credit to their supervising builder, Tim Brocklehurst, who ran the project on the ground for Robinsons, Contract Manager Sam Cowan, and their team, as well as to a general willingness among the many parties to sort out any issues together, with honest and clear communication. With its complex mix of civil and landscaping tasks including drainage and earthworks, bespoke outdoor timber furniture, a mini golf green and a giant chessboard, that work won Robinson Asphalts the 2025 Civil Contractors New Zealand (CCNZ) Northland Branch Hynds award for Construction Projects valued between $500,000 and $2 million. It’s the latest in a long line of awards, testament to the quality of their work over the decades. With 54 years behind them, as the third generation finds its stride, slow and sustained growth remains the goal. Putting effort into keeping up with new construction technology and knowing they can rely on their team as they tackle the various projects that lie ahead, they are confidently continuing the Robinson Asphalts legacy into the future. LEADERS IN QUALITY GATE AUTOMATION DESIGN AND SERVICE We supply and install gates and automation commercial industrial and domestic along with barrier arms etc, we also service/repair all gates and automation through out northland from Matakana to Kaitaia. Get a quote: 021 623 464 Northland Gate Automation www.nga.co.nz
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