Police operations in Perth are set to enter a new era, with the anticipated completion and opening of the $93 million Perth Police Centre this April.
The Perth Police Centre will be a purpose-built state-of-the-art building that will accommodate the Perth Watch House, Magistrate’s Court, Perth Police Station, Central Metropolitan District Office and various District Police Units.
The builder, BGC Construction, says they chose ARC as the sole supplier of reinforced steel to the project largely because of their positive experience working with them on the Perth Arena; another government project located in the city’s heart.
“We developed really good relations with BGC through the Perth Arena project,” says Phil Marcar, Senior Key Account Manager with ARC. “We were their sole suppliers of reo for the project: 6,500 tonnes over several years.”
ARC was awarded the Perth Police Centre tender in November 2010, worked to a tight schedule to supply the first delivery in early December 2010, and delivered the final orders in September 2012.
“Over this time, we encountered and managed some of the challenges inherent to projects of this nature,” says Marcar, “such as adjusting engineers’ designs to accommodate actual on-the-ground conditions. We have an outstanding scheduler who has a background in engineering and was able to work closely with BGC’s building engineer to address these issues.”
Additionally, Northbridge’s busy inner city location and narrow streets presented challenges in terms of delivering materials potential disruptions to traffic. Schedulers from ARC and BGC worked together to develop ways around this.
According to BGC Construction, whenever they needed reinforcing accessories that ARC didn’t normally stock (such as ReidBar and Ancon products) ARC sourced, purchased and supplied them on their behalf.
“This not only saved our client time and legwork,” says Marcar, “but probably money too. As a national company, ARC is able to source products nationally, at a competitive price.”
