Imperial Hotel – Fort St

2015

This 3 storey, historic building was built on the foreshore in the 1880s and actually consists of three buildings. The building is mostly made up of unreinforced brick masonry and timber, but has a frame work of concrete encased steel beams dating from upgrades in the 1950s.This was when the old hotel was sold and the wall along Fort Street became a shop front. Now used as a Backpackers Lodge the old building was badly in need of seismic strengthening and this was undertaken over a period of 4 years from 2011 to 2015. Parapet strengthening, provision of new steel frames and tying the floors to the walls were all part of the strategy to get the (%, NBS) above 67%. All of the building upgrades were undertaken whilst the backpackers remained open.