Background
Lismore has been one of the hardest hit regions when it comes to New South Wales’ recent flood disasters. And, for the first time ever floodwaters reached the retail floor of Lismore Shopping Square rendering it closed for nearly half a year.
Built in 1979, the shopping centre is home to 78 retailers including four major outlets such as Woolworths and Kmart. It was the first time in its nearly 45 year existence that a flood caused this much significant damage, having only previously reached the carpark and impacted the foyer. Instead, this flood ravaged through the entire centre with retailers losing stock, damaged goods spread throughout the centre and mud and water damage reaching as high as 2 metres on some walls.
The clean up was a big job, as was the rebuilding of the centre and individual retail spaces but one positive to have come from the flood was the opportunity for McConaghy Properties to build on what they had before but make it better and that was no different when it came to replacing their master key system.
“We wanted to get back up and running as soon as possible but more than that we wanted the centre to be better than before and to ensure that new building materials would be more flood resistant in the future, “ says Shaun Haysom, Centre Manager.
Implementation
Condon Architectural Hardware were contracted to replace all the doors, locks and lock hardware throughout the centre. “We initially offered the client (McConaghy Properties) a couple of standard inline options. However, they were really impressed with the EVVA EPS G2 and so that’s the way we went” says Daniel O’Connor, Managing Director of Condon Architectual Hardware.
“They were looking for something a little higher end than your standard inline systems and wanted a little more extra security and peace of mind,” Daniel said. And that’s exactly what EVVA’s EPS G2 offers – high quality, high security and added assurances.
Daniel and his team installed approximately 50 new doors and fitted them all with EVVA EPS G2. The installation was “very straight forward” and “all went smoothly” according to Daniel.
“In terms of floods, the local community hope that this level of flooding was a one off. However, the catastrophic events of 28 February 2022 have proven that the centre is prone to the possibility of future flooding” said Daniel and with that in mind EPS G2 was the perfect solution given its high resistance to corrosion and fire and ability to operate even in the harshest of environments (-20 degrees Celsius to 80 degrees Celsius).
Lismore Shopping Square was actually Condon’s first install of the EVVA EPS G2, but they too were very impressed and now stock EVVA’s EPS G2 and look forward to marketing and selling more of it.
“You can even notice the difference in quality when you’re simply inserting your key in the cylinder as opposed to a normal cylinder. It’s a lot smoother and easy to key up. We’ve been really impressed with the product,”
– Daniel O’Connor , Managing Director of Condon Architectural Hardware
Shaun and the retailers of Lismore Shopping Square are also very impressed with the install saying “the retailers and Centre Management Staff couldn’t be happier with the security and simplicity of the EVVA EPS G2 locks and keys. I’m very happy with the result”.
