Watts & Hughes Construction was selected as the main contractor to complete the construction of a new Countdown supermarket in Claudelands, Hamilton East.

The site required extensive ground remediation which was achieved by bulk excavating the soft ground and compacting imported engineered fill in its place; a process which took the better part of six weeks to complete during the early winter.

The external building envelope consists of precast wall panels with approximately 25% of the glazing and metal wall cladding over either timber framing and/or precast walls. The main roof is Kingspan with internal box gutters with the supermarket canopies being either under-slung Kingspan or metal profile roofing.

Features of the project were the different interior colour scheme and layout of the supermarket from most of the others. This included an open plan meat preparation area visible through a window from the retail area, an orange colour band and the introduction of a café adjacent to the entrance.