Westfield's shiny new Sky Lobby in the 25-storey commercial tower on Castlereagh Street Lobby is the final part of Westfield's $1.2 billion redevelopment in the CBD, a development that has created a world-class retail environment and which incorporates 75,000sq.m of office space across three buildings. JP Morgan, Allen & Overy and Westfield Corporate are all tenants.
Rising above the retail podium of Sydney, the 25-storey tower is accessed by lifts from the Sky Lobby at the top of the retail precinct. The Sky Lobby also acts as a transition area for access to Castlereagh Street itself and the retail area.
The Sky Lobby has airport lounge-type meeting areas including cafés designed to create an environment where people can interact informally. In fact on any given day up to 3,500 people could be dropping in and out of that area from internal offices plus those coming in from the street to visit the shops and food outlets.
The potential to secure advertising income from the space quickly became apparent and Westfield's decided to enable car dealerships to display vehicles in the Sky Lobby by means of a vehicle hoisting system.
Designed by Jason Kiely from Jands' ERG department, the system consists of two motorised girder trolleys, two non-motorised girder trolleys, four ASM double reeved Otto 1000 chain hoists, ASM LC8 and RC128 for control, cable management system and various steel members and rigging equipment to facilitate the lifting of a vehicle.
A typical vehicle lift within the Sky Lobby consists of the following actions: chain motors are rigged to the beam trolleys located at level 7, vehicle gantry is constructed and connected to the hoist, the gantry is then traversed over the void by the motorised beam trolleys. When in position the four Otto chain hoists lower the vehicle gantry to the entry foyer, the gantry is then dismantled to allow vehicle access and then re-assembled around the vehicle. The vehicle is then strapped down and raised to level 7. The vehicle is then traversed to the level 7 lobby and lowered down to the lobby floor where the gantry is then dismantled and the vehicle is free to move within Sky Lobby 7.
"Jands has done a terrific job from the testing stage of the lift through to the Range Rover execution," commented Mathew Moses, Westfield's retail operations executive. "The exercise took almost 12 hours from start to finish. Jands had to be precise in measurements and weight distribution in order for it to be successful and they did just that."