Located in the heart of Portarlington, the Grand Hotel offers sweeping views of Port Phillip Bay and the Melbourne city skyline. A mainstay attraction in the Bellarine, the Hotel has welcomed guests since its construction in 1888.

Portarlington Grand Hotel is considered the pearl of the Bellarine Peninsula. Australian Restoration & Construction (ARC) was tasked with a major refurbishment of the facility.

In recent years the opulent allure of the facility had dissipated, and its paintwork had begun to show its age. Australian Restoration & Construction aimed to revive the facility with a major refurbishment project.

When taking on a project of this calibre, you need to ensure all trades on-site are the best-in-class, which is why our Geelong team was engaged for the repainting component of the refurbishment.

The challenge

Our local Geelong painting experts identified a range of challenges that needed to be negated with careful operational planning from the outset. Delivering a repaint to a building of this age came with its complexities. Not only did all works have to be completed in conjunction with heritage guidelines, but there is a balance that must be struck between preserving the heritage components of the building while introducing modernisation.

The project was delivered through COVID-19 times, which caused working conditions to change on short notice. The number of workers permitted on-site fluctuated significantly throughout the project. This resulted in the loss of operational hours that loomed as problematic given the tight timeframes involved in a multi-trade refurbishment project of this scale.

Solution

Higgins’ expertise in working with heritage facilities is well-documented, and for this project, it would be no different. Our operations team worked within state heritage guidelines for each surface and applied the Dulux specified paints to uplift the look of the facility. Our operatives performed an extensive external repaint utilising scaffolding to access all areas. The full internal repaint featured a range of different rooms, with some extensions into new spaces.

We implemented a COVID-Safe plan to ensure the safety of all workers on-site. Within the plan, we cited a range of on-site measures necessary to comply with state regulations, including social distancing, use of Protective Personal Equipment (PPE), and a reduction in our volume of operatives. This required our workforce to be scaled up significantly when government standards changed and enabled it.

Results

Despite the disruptions caused by COVID-19, our operations team of up to 20 painters delivered the project on time and within budget for ARC. The typical high-quality finish is yet another within our heritage project portfolio. The Hotel’s reopening was a success that our local experts were glad to have played a role in.