KFC Taco Bell, Northcote

This was the first job we did for Vivian Construction.

That matters more than the contract value, because a first job with a new main contractor is really an audition. Nobody has worked with you before. Nothing is assumed. Every question you ask gets weighed, and so does every question you should have asked and did not.

The building is a combined KFC and Taco Bell at Northcote on Auckland's North Shore, completed October 2025. Our scope was an Autex GreenStuf install across three areas: external walls, intertenancy walls between the two brands, and the ceiling.

The ceiling is the part worth describing. It was not fixed to a substrate. It was suspended on wire mesh, with the GreenStuf carried on the mesh rather than fastened to framing above it. That changes the install completely. Instead of working to a fixed line you are working to a plane you are creating as you go, and any sag or unevenness shows immediately across the whole span. It is slower, it needs more hands, and it is far less forgiving than a standard fix.

The intertenancy walls between the two brands are the other detail people underestimate. Two food outlets sharing a building means two sets of kitchen equipment, two sets of extraction, and two customer areas. The acoustic separation between them is not a nice-to-have.

Everything else about the job was the constraint that always applies to franchise work. The brand sets the opening date, the trades work backwards from it, and there is very little tolerance for slippage. Delivered on time and on budget.

Worth being straight about what our role was. We did not specify any of this. The system was already drawn and the products were already chosen. Our job was to price it properly, get it to site, and install it so nobody had to think about it again. On a first job with a new contractor, that is the entire test.