The containers in Newmarket are being used for everything from pedestrian walkways around part of the 88,150 sq metre site, through to multi-storey container site offices, toilet blocks, and refrigeration.

Royal Wolf is Australasia’s largest supplier of shipping containers and the scale of the Westfield Newmarket project highlights the continued growth of the container hire and sale sector in New Zealand.

"Newmarket is a huge development and although it may not be obvious, the containers play an important role in ensuring the project runs efficiently and smoothly," says Royal Wolf Executive General Manager Paul Creighton.

"From a workflow and health and safety perspective, the efficiency, strength and ease of installation and use of containers helps create a highly efficient and robust work site which means workers can just get on and get the job done."

Much of the upgrade of Scentre Group's Westfield Newmarket shopping centre located at 277 Broadway is shielded from view by containers lining the perimeter of the site as works continue.

A line of 14 double storey site office containers, complete with walkway balconies connecting each container unit, line one corner of the site where the former Westfield Newmarket - 277 Broadway centre is undergoing a refurbishment and expansion.

Container pedestrian walk ways run down the hill on Mortimer Pass, a main thoroughfare for traffic heading to Newmarket from the Southern Motorway.

Mr Creighton says one of the challenges for contractors on the Newmarket site, and inner city building sites in general, is having enough room to set up site offices and to store equipment.

"Containers are an ideal solution because they can be stacked easily and very quickly to multiple levels on top of each other. It means there is limited disruption around building sites, which are often in high pedestrian areas."

Royal Wolf’s containers will be on site until the project is completed which is projected to be in the last quarter of 2019.

Key tenants for the new Westfield Newmarket include Farmers, Countdown and Australian department store David Jones, and it will house around 220 new stores, an Events cinema complex, and roof top restaurants and bars.

With growing awareness around the versatility of containers, and ongoing demand in key areas such as construction, storage, and semi-permanent worker accommodation, Royal Wolf has undergone widespread expansion in the last two years and is now in 12 centres around the country.

Creighton says it is relocating its Dunedin and Wellington offices to larger sites to cater for increased demand, and its second largest site in Christchurch is expanding later in the year to provide increased capacity in Canterbury.

"Containers have become a part of the landscape in New Zealand being used for storage through to being widely used in the construction and infrastructure sectors.

"There is huge potential for Royal Wolf to grow and diversify even further as companies and customers start to realise the diverse uses containers can be used for."